J.P. Morgan Sees Losing Some Business Due to FX Guilty Plea

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Chief James Dimon said the bank's recent foreign exchange guilty plea didn't cripple the bank, but it was a scary outcome that will probably cost it some business.

Last week, five global banks including J.P. Morgan agreed to pay $5.6 billion in combined penalties and plead guilty to criminal charges to resolve a long-running U.S. investigation into whether traders colluded to move foreign-currency rates for their own financial benefit.

"It's a terrible thing to have to go through that," Mr. Dimon said at a financial services conference Wednesday afternoon, adding there were conversations with the management team, thousands of people to brief beforehand and the board wasn't happy.

Mr. Dimon, chairman and chief executive of the nation's largest U.S. bank by assets, added that regulators and the government did a "very good job" preconditioning the market and announcing guilty pleas and fines against several banks at the same time. Still, Mr. Dimon said he expects the bank will lose some business due to the guilty plea.

He added the bank has learned from the mistakes and now has new rules and surveillance around chat rooms, which is where much of the colluding about currency trades occurred.

Mr. Dimon added the bank has continued to focus on its culture to weed out bad behavior. It is doing more training after employees are with the bank after three and five years.

(By Emily Glazer)