The Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have fined banking giant JPMorgan Chase $348.20 million in a joint enforcement action. Both regulatory bodies found that JPMorgan engaged in unsafe banking practices related to its trade surveillance program. The OCC stated that since 2019, JPMorgan had gaps in its trade surveillance program, leading to a failure to adequately monitor traders and clients for potential market misconduct in billions of trading instances. The Fed also noted deficiencies in JPMorgan’s trade surveillance program from 2014 to 2023, allowing the bank’s corporate and investment bank division to operate without effective data oversight and reconciliation processes.
In addition to the monetary penalty, both regulatory bodies issued cease-and-desist orders to JPMorgan, requiring the bank to take significant actions to improve its trade surveillance program. The OCC mandated JPMorgan to create an action plan outlining steps for program compliance, a timeline for completion, and the responsible individual. The Fed required an independent third party to assess JPMorgan’s trade surveillance program, focusing on detecting market misconduct and addressing non-surveilled trading activities.
JPMorgan Chase has paid $39.34 billion in fines since 2000 for various regulatory violations, according to data from the Violation Tracker. Despite these penalties, the bank reported a profit of $49.6 billion last year.
