JPMorgan Chase Q3 net income soars to $3.6 bn

Financial services major JPMorgan Chase today reported a close to seven-fold jump in net income at $3.6 billion in the third quarter of this year, boosted by strong growth in its investment banking services.

The company had a net income of $527 million in the year-ago period, JPMorgan said in a statement.

Net revenue increased to $28.78 billion in the latest quarter from $12.69 billion in the year-ago period.

"Our net income of $3.6 billion in the quarter reflected strong earnings power of the company, with broad -based growth across the investment bank, asset management, commercial banking and retail banking," JPMorgan Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said.

During the quarter, the company has added $2 billion to consumer credit reserves, bringing the total tally to $31.5 billion, or 5.3 per cent of total loans.

The company's net income was $1.9 billion in investment banking services, an increase of $1 billion from third quarter of 2008. While net revenue stood at $7.5 billion, an increase of 85 per cent from the prior year.

"These results included negative impact of the tightening of the firm's credit spread, offset by the positive impact of counter party spread tightening and gains on legacy leveraged lending and mortgage-related positions," JPMorgan said.

In retail banking, JPMorgan reported a net income of $1 billion, up by 44 per cent from same quarter last year, while net revenue jumped by 61 per cent to $1.7 billion.

"The increase reflected impact of the Washington Mutual transaction, higher deposit balances, higher deposit-related fees and wider deposit spreads," the statement said.

Last year, JPMorgan Chase has acquired all deposits, assets and certain liabilities of Washington Mutual's banking operations from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) for around $1.9 billion.

However, in consumer lending services, the company's net loss widened to $1 billion as compared with $659 million in the prior year.

Financial behemoth's net income was $341 million in commercial banking, an increase of $29 million from the third quarter of 2008. Net revenue witnessed a surge of 30 per cent to $1.5 billion.

In Asset Management services, JPMorgan saw a growth of 23 per cent in net income to $430 million. The company's net revenue went up by 6 per cent to $124 million.