This Staggering Chart Reveals the Reality of Black-Owned Banks

By Felix Salmon  |  April 4, 2017 | 7:36pm
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JPMorgan Chase just released its annual report, showing 2016 profits of $24.7 billion (that’s almost half a billion dollars per week), on total assets of $2.5 trillion–a number so large it’s almost impossible for the human mind to conceive.

Meanwhile, opportunities for black Americans to run their own banks are shrinking fast. According to the FDIC, there are only 24 black-owned banks remaining, and collectively they have assets of just $5.8 billion. To put it another way, JPMorgan is 427 times bigger than all of the black-owned banks in America combined.

Here’s the chart; if you really squint you can see the assets of black-owned banks in blue.

So if black bankers aren’t seeing any growth at their own banks, how are they doing at the behemoth? Not so well, it turns out. As CEO Jamie Dimon admits in his annual letter:

There is one area in particular where we simply have not met the standards JPMorgan Chase has set for itself–and that is in increasing African-American talent at the firm.

It’s good he’s trying to do something about it, but it’s already far too late.

 
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