1. We go to extraordinary lengths to help our customers — consumers, small businesses, midsize companies, large corporations, and state and local governments.

First and foremost, we have to be prepared to operate under extremely adverse circumstances.

The significant economic fallout from this crisis reinforces the critical need to keep the global financial system fully functioning – and we recognize that our firm is an important part of the global economy.

Therefore, we incorporate plans for resilience in everything we do – resilience for hurricanes, data center failures, cyber attacks and other issues. And while we had not envisioned the effects of a pandemic like this one, all of this preparation has paid off – and we have been able to accomplish far more and far more quickly than we originally thought possible. It is absolutely essential that we be up and functioning for all of our customers each and every day. How else would we process $6 trillion in payments or buy and sell approximately $2 trillion in securities and foreign exchange transactions for our clients on a daily basis? And how else would we raise more than $2 trillion of credit and capital for our clients each year? Our branches, collectively, have 1 million customer visits each day, and our combined credit card and debit card transaction volume totals $1.1 trillion a year.

During this crisis, we have been utilizing our disaster recovery sites and implementing alternative work arrangements globally. We now have more than 180,000 employees working from home (and quite effectively), including traders, bankers, portfolio managers, and operations and call center teams across the globe. We are ensuring they continue to operate at the highest standards with the proper technological tools and access so they can serve their clients safely and seamlessly. Over the past few weeks, we have had nearly 150,000 concurrent virtual sessions – nearly five times our pre-pandemic average – and we have capacity in reserve to support significantly more demand if necessary.

We're taking significant steps to help our consumer customers.

After Superstorm Sandy, Hurricane Harvey and other devastating natural disasters around the globe, after wildfires ravaged California towns and after a number of other tragic events, we stepped up for our customers. Today, we are doing the same across the country as we work individually with customers facing COVID-19-related hardships.

We have been helping our customers, who tell us about their financial struggles as a result of the crisis, and are offering relief measures such as:

• Providing a 90-day grace period for mortgage and auto loan/lease payments and waiving any associated late fees.
• Removing minimum payment requirements on credit cards and waiving associated late fees.
• Not reporting payment deferrals such as late payments to credit bureaus for up-to-date clients.
• Continuing to responsibly lend to qualified consumers.
• Waiving or refunding some fees, including early withdrawal fees on certificates of deposit.

You can learn more about our customer response at: www.chase.com/stayconnected: opens overlay

Of our approximately 5,000 Chase branches, we have managed to keep three-quarters of them open – and safe – for our customers who need our services. In every one of our markets, almost all of our 2,300 branches with drive-up windows have remained open for business, allowing people to maintain a safe distance. Our 17,000 bankers have continued to take appointments and proactively reach out to customers – helping them manage their finances and use our digital tools – often letting customers stay home. In addition, the vast majority of our 16,850 ATMs are well-stocked and still functioning to provide needed cash to our customers. Our call centers have not fared as well; many of them have been effectively shut down by local restrictions. As the volume of calls has increased from customers seeking assistance, hold times have also increased. We have mobilized quickly to address this issue, reminding customers that our digital self-service capabilities are always available for them to check balances, deposit checks or make payments. Additionally, we have built new tools – digital and electronic – to allow customers to request relief without waiting for a specialist. And we are making it possible for our displaced phone specialists to work from home.

We are also taking significant action to support businesses – small, midsize and large – and state and local governments.

Clearly, some clients may be much more vulnerable than others – for example, transportation companies, hospitality enterprises, hospitals, utilities and, in particular, small businesses that do not have enough capital to withstand sudden and sustained downturns in income. JPMorgan Chase Institute research reveals that 50% of small businesses have less than 15 cash buffer days, reinforcing why small businesses are being heavily disrupted by the current crisis and will feel the effects for a significant period of time – even as more capital from the recent federal stimulus program reaches them.

To support businesses during this current crisis, we are doing the following:

• Prudently extending credit to businesses of all sizes for working capital and general corporate purposes. For example, in the past 60 days alone, we have extended $950 million in new loans to small businesses.
• Waiving and refunding fees for those businesses in need and finding ways to help more small businesses through resources available at the Small Business Administration.
• Servicing clients with additional credit through revolving facilities, when appropriate, and stepping in to try to help with credit when others can't or won't.
• Continuing in the ordinary course of business to sustain consumers, businesses and communities with about $500 billion of credit and capital raised every quarter.
• Continuing to maintain undrawn revolving commitments in our wholesale businesses, which totaled approximately $295 billion as of the close of business on March 31, 2020. Companies have already drawn down more than $50 billion of their revolvers to prepare themselves for the crisis (this already dramatically exceeds what happened in the global financial crisis). Many others have requested additional credit, which we have been offering judiciously – more than $25 billion of new credit extensions were approved in the month of March alone.
• Continuing the issuance of bonds for highly rated companies ($85 billion) – it may surprise you that the first quarter of 2020 will be our largest quarter for investment grade issuance, led by J.P. Morgan.
• Continuing to support vital institutions to keep our communities strong: Increased funding in March included, for example, $1.9 billion for hospitals and healthcare companies, $270 million for educational institutions, $360 million for nonprofits, and $240 million for state and local governments.
• Continuing to fund construction projects essential to our communities (affordable housing, food banks and grocery stores) through our $5 billion commitment.

Recognizing the extraordinary extension of new credit, mentioned above, and knowing there will be a major recession mean that we are exposing ourselves to billions of dollars of additional credit losses as we help both consumer and business customers through these difficult times. (We will provide more detail on these actions later in this letter.) Of course, we are in continual contact with our regulators about our actions and efforts.

We stand ready to assist the government in implementing stimulus package benefits to support the economy.

We applaud the speed with which the federal government and the Federal Reserve (the Fed), as well as other central banks around the world, put together a stimulus package and other funding benefits to help individuals, businesses, and state and local entities across the United States and beyond. Much remains to be done to assure these resources can be quickly and effectively rolled out. We hope to be at the forefront of using this assistance to help our customers get through what is certain to be a difficult next few months. We will not use this relief funding for ourselves.

2. We take excellent care of our employees.

3. We make extraordinary efforts to lift up our communities, especially in challenging times.

I believe that our shareholders know we make extraordinary efforts to lift up our communities, both at a local level – supporting schools and work skills training, for example – and at the national level, helping to formulate policies that are good for countries. These policies affect healthcare, infrastructure, education and employment, including initiatives such as those that help people with a criminal background get a second chance.

We know that crises like COVID-19 create further inequities in society so it is even more important that we be present for those communities hit hard by the pandemic. JPMorgan Chase made a $50 million commitment to help address the immediate humanitarian crisis, as well as the long-term economic challenges people face. Funding will be deployed over time with particular focus on the most vulnerable people and communities, including:

• Immediate healthcare, food and other humanitarian relief globally;
• Help for existing nonprofit partners around the world that are responding to the crisis in their communities;
• Assistance to small businesses vulnerable to significant economic hardships in the United States, China and Europe.

There is a tremendous amount we do day to day – in addition to traditional banking – to help the communities in which we operate, including the following, some of which you might be surprised to know:

• We finance more than $5.5 billion in affordable housing each year (including residential and commercial lending and mortgages in low- and moderate-income communities).
• We provide small business loans in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.
• We design products and services to promote the financial health of lower-income individuals.
• We support a number of employee- and community-based initiatives and philanthropic activities, including:
  • Office of Military and Veterans Affairs, which sponsors mentorship, development and recognition programs to support the military and veterans working at the firm;
  • Women on the Move, our global firmwide effort that empowers female employees, clients and consumers;
  • The Service Corps, which mobilizes employee volunteers to help nonprofit organizations around the world;
  • Advancing Black Pathways, a comprehensive program focused on providing more opportunities for black people and black-owned businesses because we know that opportunity is not always created equally;
  • Entrepreneurs of Color Fund, which is expanding and provides minority entrepreneurs with access to capital, education and other resources.
    

• We expect to finance more than $100 billion in transactions aimed at supporting development in emerging market countries – in infrastructure, education, healthcare, agribusiness and industry, among other investments – to promote the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals.
• We are huge supporters of regional and community banks, which are critical to many cities and small towns around the country. We bank approximately 500 of America's 5,000 regional and community banks. In 2019, we lent or raised a total of $2.6 billion in capital for them. In addition, we provide payment-processing services for them, we finance some of their mortgage activities, we advise on acquisitions, and we buy and sell securities for these banks. We also supply interest rate swaps and foreign exchange both for themselves – to help them hedge some of their exposures – and for their clients. For example, while many community banks were seeking more liquidity to serve their local communities amidst COVID-19 fears, we were able to help approximately 100 community banks secure $775 million in increased cash availability over a three-week period in March, delivering $1.9 billion of cash to support their branches and ATMs. This is not only a win for our clients but also for the communities in which they operate.

4. We are transparent with our shareholders: What they should expect regarding our financial and operating performance in 2020.

Of course, we do not know how this crisis will ultimately end, including how long it will last, how much economic damage it will do, or how fast or slow the recovery will be. We have always been serious about stress testing and run an enormous number of tests per week so that we are prepared for most crises. But as is often the case, this “actual new crisis” – while it shares attributes with what is being stress tested – is dramatically different from the expected.

We stopped buying back our stock: We have always held the position that the highest and best use of our equity is to reinvest it in our own business and, of course, to be able to withstand tough times. Halting buybacks was simply a very prudent action – we don't know exactly what the future will hold – but at a minimum, we assume that it will include a bad recession combined with some kind of financial stress similar to the global financial crisis of 2008. Our bank cannot be immune to the effects of this kind of stress.

We will share in detail our latest thinking on the impact this crisis will have on our financials in our first quarter earnings release in mid-April; however, to put it in context, here is how our shareholders can think broadly about a reasonable range of outcomes.

Our 2019 pretax earnings were $48 billionfootnote3 – a huge and powerful earnings stream that enables us to absorb the loss of revenues and the higher credit costs that inevitably follow a crisis. For comparison, the Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR) results for 2020 that we submitted to the Federal Reserve in 2019 (which assumed outcomes like U.S. unemployment peaking at 10% and the stock market falling 50%) showed a decline in revenue of almost 20% and credit costs of approximately $20 billion more than what we experienced in 2019. We believe we would perform better than this if the Fed's scenario were to actually occur. But even in the Fed's scenario, we would be profitable in every quarter.footnote4 These stress test results also show that following such a meaningful reduction in our revenue (and assuming we continue to pay dividends), our common equity Tier 1 (CET1) ratio would likely hold at a very strong 10%, and we would have in excess of $500 billion of liquid assets.

Additionally, we have run an extremely adverse scenario that assumes an even deeper contraction of gross domestic product, down as much as 35% in the second quarter and lasting through the end of the year, and with U.S. unemployment continuing to increase, peaking at 14% in the fourth quarter. Even under this scenario, the company would still end the year with strong liquidity and a CET1 ratio of approximately 9.5% (common equity Tier 1 capital would still total $170 billion). This scenario is quite severe and, we hope, unlikely. If it were to play out, the Board would likely consider suspending the dividend even though it is a rather small claim on our equity capital base. If the Board suspended the dividend, it would be out of extreme prudence and based upon continued uncertainty over what the next few years will bring.

It is also important to be aware that in both our central case scenario for 2020 results and in our extremely adverse scenario, we are lending – currently or plan to do so – an additional $150 billion for our clients' needs. Despite this, our capital resources and liquidity are very strong in both models. We have over $500 billion in total liquid assets and an incremental $300+ billion borrowing capacity at the Federal Reserve and Federal Home Loan Banks, if needed, to support these loans, as well as meet our liquidity requirements (these numbers do not include the potential use of some of the Fed's newly created facilities). We could, of course, make our capital and liquidity buffer better by restricting our activities, but we do not intend to do that – our clients need us.

I would like to point out that, as we get closer to the extremely adverse scenario, current regulatory constraints will limit additional actions we can take to help clients – in spite of the extraordinary amount of capital and liquidity we could deploy.

5. We are working closely with all levels of government during this crisis — and while we will participate in government programs to address the severe economic challenges, we will not request any regulatory relief for ourselves.

We are just beginning to analyze and work with the government on all of their various programs. For the most part, these initiatives will need the deep involvement of the private sector to be properly executed. We intend to do everything we can – and as soon as possible – to ensure that government support is reaching the people who need it most.

We applaud and support the recent actions the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have taken to try to mitigate the economic impact of the COVID-19 turmoil. The Fed's overwhelming actions have already dramatically reduced the financial stress in the system, and there is still more they could do if they need to. For example, balance sheet expansion, additional lending facilities, and changes to capital and liquidity requirements are steps designed to ensure that more capital will flow through the system, which will ultimately allow us to help more families and small businesses. These actions would bolster the U.S. economy with no impact on safety, soundness or regulatory oversight. We are working with the government to make sure such crisis-relief measures are structured to work effectively – there are a significant number of details that need to be resolved, which I will not go into here.

While we will aggressively help our customers take advantage of these new programs (though we must take action to protect ourselves from ongoing – and, more important, future – litigation risk), we want our shareholders to know that we have not requested any regulatory relief for ourselves. Saying that we will not ask for regulatory relief does not mean the government shouldn't change some rules and regulations, however. For example, some rules can improperly prevent healthy, well-capitalized banks from lending freely in times of stress. This can hurt customers as the crisis deepens. Leaving high-quality, available liquidity undeployed in times of need is an opportunity forever lost.

I have written in detail in past letters that the regulatory system is in need of both reform and recalibration – not because we want it to happen but because it would be good for a deepening and widening of the financial system – something that would benefit all Americans. While a lot of the rules were constructive and made the financial system stronger, we are now seeing the impact of poorly coordinated, poorly calibrated and poorly organized rulemaking. After the crisis subsides (and it will), our country should thoroughly review all aspects of our preparedness and response. And we should use the opportunity to closely review the economic response and determine whether any additional regulatory changes are warranted to improve our financial and economic system. There will be a time and place for that – but not now.

6. We need a plan to get safely back to work.

It is hoped that the number of new COVID-19 cases will decrease soon and – coupled with greatly enhanced medical capabilities (more beds, proper equipment where it is needed, adequate testing) – the healthcare system is equipped to take care of all Americans, both minimizing their suffering and maximizing their chance of living. Once this occurs, people can carefully start going back to work, of course with proper social distancing, vigilant hygiene, proper testing and other precautions. There are many jobs that can be safely done; however, employees in certain companies should return to business as usual only if the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other government entities deem it safe to do so.

In addition, this “return to work” process could be accelerated if federal, state and local governments make tests widely available that allow people to certify that they have contracted and recovered from the disease, have the necessary antibodies to prevent them from getting sick again and are not infectious to anyone. Initially, we need a buffer period of days or weeks for people to be tested, and then for those who test negative for the virus, we need to discover whether virus antibodies appear through serology testing. Both the CDC and private companies are scrambling to produce such tests: The U.K. has ordered 3.5 million of them, Germany will use them to issue immunity certificates to COVID-19 survivors, and China and Singapore already are using tests to determine how extensively the virus spread in large populations in order to measure the true infection rate. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration is allowing doctors to use these serology tests to identify recovered patients whose antibodies could treat emergency cases of the disease.

The country was not adequately prepared for this pandemic – however, we can and should be more prepared for what comes next. Done right, a disciplined transition would maximize the health of Americans and minimize the time, extent and suffering caused by the economic downturn.

7. We need to come together: My fervent hope for America.

Sometimes extraordinary events in history can cause a change in the body politic. As a nation, we were clearly not equipped for this global pandemic, and the consequences have been devastating. But it is forcing us to work together, and it is improving civility and reminding us that we all live on one planet. E Pluribus Unum.

I am hoping that civility, humanity, empathy and the goal of improving America will break through.

We have the resources to emerge from this crisis as a stronger country. America is still the most prosperous nation the world has ever seen. We are blessed with the natural gifts of land; all the food, water and energy we need; the Atlantic and Pacific oceans as natural borders; and wonderful neighbors in Canada and Mexico. And we are blessed with the extraordinary gifts from our Founding Fathers, which are still unequaled: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, and the promise of equality and opportunity. These gifts have led to the most dynamic economy the world has ever seen – one that nurtures vibrant businesses large and small, exceptional universities, and a welcoming environment for innovation, science and technology. America was an idea borne on principles, not based upon historical relationships and tribal politics. It has and will continue to be a beacon of hope for the world and a magnet for the world's best and brightest.

Of course, America has always had its flaws. The current pandemic is only one example of the bad planning and management that have hurt our country: Our inner city schools don't graduate half of their students and don't give our children an education that leads to a livelihood; our healthcare system is increasingly costly with many of our citizens lacking any access; and nutrition and personal health aren't even being taught at many schools. Obesity has become a national scourge. We have a litigation and regulatory system that cripples small businesses with red tape and bureaucracy; ineffective infrastructure planning and investment; and huge waste and inefficiency at both the state and federal levels. We have failed to put proper immigration policies in place; our social safety nets are poorly designed; and the share of wages for the bottom 30% of Americans has effectively been going down. We need to acknowledge these problems and the damage they have done if we are ever going to fix them.

There should have been a pandemic playbook. Likewise, every problem I noted above should have detailed and nonpartisan solutions. As we have seen in past crises of this magnitude, there will come a time when we will look back and it will be clear how we – at all levels of society, government, business, healthcare systems, and civic and humanitarian organizations – could have been and will be better prepared to face emergencies of this scale. While the inclination of some will be to finger-point and look for blame, I hope we can avoid that. I also hope we can avoid people using times of crisis to argue for what they already believe. We need to demand more of ourselves and our leaders if we want to prevent or mitigate these disasters. This can be a moment when we all come together and recognize our shared responsibility, acting in a way that reflects the best of all of us. As President Kennedy historically said, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

My fervent hope is that America rolls up its sleeves and starts to attack these problems. Fixing them would better prepare us for future catastrophes, create better economic outcomes for everyone (with policies that aim to maximize economic growth, driving the best potential outcomes), improve income inequality, protect the most vulnerable and foster economic growth that is more resilient, which would also strengthen America's role in the world. We must never forget that America's economic prosperity is a necessary foundation for our military capability, which keeps us free and strong and is essential to world peace. These issues could all be tackled while preserving the freedoms ascribed by our Founding Fathers: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of enterprise, which means the free movement of capital and labor (meaning you can work where you want and for whom you want). At the end of the day, the pursuit of happiness, our freedoms and free enterprise are inseparable.

If we acknowledge our problems and work together, we can lift up those who need help and society as a whole. Business and government collaborating together can conquer our biggest challenges.