Big Banks Rake in Record Profits as Stimulus Props Up Consumers
- Firms release billions set aside for loans that never soured
- Consumer is ‘healthiest we have seen’ after a crisis: Fraser
A Chase bank branch in San Francisco, California.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The U.S. government piled trillions of dollars of emergency funds into Americans’ accounts during the pandemic. That’s boosting the bottom lines of the banks that store their cash.
Lending giants reported blockbuster profits this week, in part because stimulus payments have helped consumers bounce back from the Covid-19 crisis and prevented more severe economic damage. The emergency funds helped boost deposits at the four biggest U.S. banks to $6.9 trillion last quarter, up 15% from a year earlier.