Daily Management Review

$125 Million In Project To Encourage People To Save To Be Invested By JP Morgan Chase


05/15/2019




Aiding the general public and educating them to make savings, pay down their debts and enhance their credit worthiness and credit sources, an amount of $125 million would be invested in not for profit groups by JPMorgan Chase & Co over the next five years, the has announced. The project would be applicable in US as well as in other countries of the world.
 
The ultimate goal of the project is to increase the span of working of the not for profits organizations which are engaged in working with societal groups to make them more secure financially and increase their ability to tide over periods of financial hardships. Under a project of promoting urban renewal in cities including Paris, Detroit, Chicago and others, efforts that need financially stable citizens to succeed, the bank has already made pledge in the form of grants, donations and loans worth more than $800 million.
 
“We see financial health as a cornerstone of inclusive growth in cities”, Colleen Briggs, head of community innovation at JPMorgan Chase’s corporate responsibility office, said in an interview to a television channel.
 
According to a 2016 report by the Urban Institute, there is less chance of being evicted, miss housing or utility payments or receive government benefits after a health issue or job loss for people and families who have even a small amount of emergency savings ranging between $250 and $749 dependent on the place of their residence.
 
Some not-for-profit organizations operating in Miami, London, San Diego and Boston would be initially given grants worth between $300,000 and $1 million by JPMorgan. That list of organizations includes names like Mission Asset Fund with which the bank has worked with on earlier occasions.
 
The investments made by the bank is aimed to help the not-for-profit organizations to develop technology or complete other measures that would be required to scale their services in the communities that they work for or throughout the nation where they function, Briggs said.
 
“The main theme is really understanding how do we actually improve people’s financial health - moving beyond knowing how to save more to actually saving more,” Briggs said.
 
Immigrants and small business owners are helped in establishing credit scores by providing no-interest loans by the Mission Asset Fund. Financial assistance to aid MAF expand to 60 cities was made by the bank’s corporate responsibility office starting a few years ago. It also will grant another fund round worth $1 million as part of this initiative.
 
The bank has been able to launch a host of low-cost products like a no-overdraft-fee checking account called Chase Secure because of its engagement and close coordination with the nonprofits organizations, said Alice Rodriguez, head of community and business development for Chase.
 
However the bank can refer them to these nonprofits in places where those financial products are unable to help the low-income customers.
 
“To the extent that we can’t help a client with our own services, we are investing in these other nonprofits so that they can continue to provide that counseling at an ever greater scale,” Rodriguez said.
 
(Source:www.reuters.com)