Dive Brief:

• JPMorgan Chase is benefiting from increased demand for its commercial payment services as well as its consumer card services as spending by both companies and card holders kept up in the first quarter of the year, despite macroeconomic conditions causing concern. 
• The bank, which is the largest in the U.S., reported Tuesday that its commercial banking division gained during the first quarter on an increase in income for its payments services division, which logged a 12% increase to $5.1 billion over the year-earlier period, according to the company’s earnings release.
• JPMorgan Chase revenue was also bolstered by consumer spending, which pushed up sales volume from credit and debit card holders by 9% over the year-ago quarter, the New York bank said in the release. 

Dive Insight:

Investors have been closely watching bank results for signs that global macroeconomic tumult, including the U.S. and Israel war on Iran, is taking a toll on consumer spending. Bank results arriving this week suggest consumer and corporate spending in the U.S. remained resilient in the first quarter.

The first-quarter results reported by banks this week, also including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, showed an increase in overall card spending, RBC Capital Markets analyst Daniel Perlin said in a note to investors Wednesday.

“This data supports the view of a stable and healthy consumer spending environment for 1Q26, which albeit only partially captures the Middle East conflict, but nonetheless, bodes well for 1Q26 payment [earnings reports],” Perlin wrote.

The banks’ results typically provide an indication of how payments companies performed for the same period. American Express will report results next week, with Visa and Mastercard delivering their reports in the following week.

JPMorgan Chase’s increased payments revenue on the commercial side of the business resulted mainly from income generated by “higher deposit balances” in addition to more service and transaction fees, according to the earnings report.

On the consumer side of the business, card holders are carrying bigger balances, though paying generally lower interest rates. “Higher revolving balances in Card Services, predominantly offset by the impact of lower rates,” contributed to the increased income, the bank said.