JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon said in an interview on Wednesday that he thinks the country’s small businesses are having a “mini boom.”
“I think it is a mini boom, and it’s different by state,” Dimon told Yahoo Finance during a visit to Washington.
He added, “The rules and regulations are different by state, but I think we see a lot of growth in new small businesses, much more than we’ve had.”
The remarks from the boss of the nation’s largest bank come as his firm is making a policy push in DC as part of a broader plan announced earlier this year to deploy $80 billion in capital and add 1,000 more small-business bankers.
Dimon’s comments also come as interest in starting US businesses has surged. Through August, Americans filed 4.3 million business applications, according to the US Census Bureau. The figure is the highest total for the first eight months of the year since the government began tracking the data in 2004.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also recently touted the prospect of a boom among smaller firms in part due to AI use, telling reporters last month at a G20 meeting in Asheville, “We are seeing AI result in a massive increase in small business start-ups.”
At the same time, small businesses have continued to report tighter credit conditions since the pandemic, according to a March Federal Reserve survey.
“Sticky inflation has been an issue for small businesses. Input costs, healthcare costs, those are real issues they face,” JPMorgan’s head of business banking, Stevie Baron said.
JPMorgan’s policy push for small firms and startups includes expanding access to government-backed small-business financing, reducing regulatory and administrative burdens, and making it easier for smaller firms to win government contracts and enter supply chains connected to critical infrastructure like shipbuilding, aerospace, and defense.
It also comes a month after the Small Business Administration introduced a proposal calling for an overhaul of the revenue and headcount sizing standards that determine a company’s small-business status.
JPMorgan is hiring 300 small business bankers next year, including 25 business consultants, with the aim to add 3 million small business customers over the next several years after adding 3.1 million over the last five years, per regulatory filings.
“They need advice. Where do I put the next restaurant, how do you sign a government contract? How do you get health insurance?” Dimon said, of small businesses.
“AI should actually make it easier to do some of that stuff,” he added.