The bank's so-called “war room” will probably begin daily meetings on May 21, then ramp up to three times a day if the impasse over the debt ceiling continues, he said.
“We have to be very careful about getting this close to default,” he said, which could lead to a financial panic.
“It's very unfortunate, it's going to take time, hopefully it doesn't happen, but it affects contracts, collateral, clearinghouses, customers.”
Turning to the banking crisis, Dimon said regional banks are “pretty strong” after reporting good earnings. Still, industry and regulators “must prepare for problems.”
He expected more regulation on banks, but stressed the need to proceed with caution. Dimon expects regulators, including the US Securities and Exchange Commission (sec), to look into the short selling of bank shares and possible collusion via social media posts.
Despite those concerns, Dimon blamed the recent banking crisis on the CEOs and boards of failed lenders.
He said First Republic Bank's interest rate risk has been reduced after JPMorgan bought the company earlier this month. While he expected a blowout from the acquisition, Dimon said the US needed big banks to handle complex tasks like banking multinational corporations.
(Reporting by Tatiana Botzer Editing by Lannan Nguyen and Chizu Nomiyama)