JP Morgan Chase is universally acknowledged as a financial holding company that offers commercial and consumer banking services under the guidance of Chase brand. Additionally, its consumer business revolves around small business, small credit cards, auto-finance, commercial term lending and equipment finance among others (Smart & Creelman, 2013). Moreover, the company offers services in fiancé to governments, corporations, institutional investors, and wealthy individuals under its JP Morgan brand. Furthermore, it also deals in financial transaction activities, private equity services, and asset management (Anderson, 2013). In essence, the bank coupled with its non-bank activities operate throughout the country, through subsidiaries and overseas branches, subsidiary foreign banks and representative offices. However, its main headquarter offices are found in The United States in New York City (Pultarova, 2014).

A number of challenges, one being the long strings of criminal probes that have hampered its reputation and financial progress has of recent faced JP Morgan. Given the fact that JP Morgan is one of the dominant banking institutions in the history of America, it is somewhat questionable to believe the situation the bank has found itself. One simple reason can be the fact that its management is not really keeping track of the activities that is going around the operation of the banking sector. Additionally, the criminal probes that the bank is currently facing are one of the largest penalties that a bank has ever been slammed with in the history. In fact, this is evidenced by the fact that its criminal probes are supplanting HSBC’s a $ 1.2 billion penalty that was accorded to them for money laundering. However, the problems that JP Morgan is currently facing can be analyzed using the SWOT analysis and PESTLE analysis in order to identify some of the areas that made the bank to incur some challenges and how these challenges can be solved. The SWOT analysis will be helpful in establishing the current situation at JP Morgan whereas the PESTLE analysis will be crucial in determining some of the environmental factors that either are affecting the progress of JP Morgan or can help the bank to move forward from their current situation.

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths

Chase bank possesses an extensive consumer base that is one of their greatest strengths. Additionally, JP Morgan is universally accepted as the most prominent bank in America. Moreover, the iterative mergers that took place to establish this extensive banking institution imply that the accessibility and the infrastructure of the JP Morgan as a financial institution are huge (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). In simple terms, these financial facts clearly indicate that JP Morgan is a more stable bank as a premier banking institution that ensures that it can put up with any fiscal shocks, challenges in the long –term and in the short-term; this entails the many criminal probes that it is currently facing.

Weaknesses

One of the weaknesses that JP Morgan is currently facing is the fact that it has damaged its brand name over the years. In this case, a number of scandals have played a downside role in the reputation of the bank. For instance, in the year 2002, JP Morgan was fined a lump sum some $ 80 million to the U.S government for deceiving investors through a market research that was deemed biased (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). Moreover, another example where the trust of the consumers in JP Morgan derailed when the bank appeared to overcharge the military personnel’s mortgages. In other words, this failure to offer consumers the much- needed protection has been a repeated case for quite some time now and in the process, it may erode their long-term customer loyalty base. In the process, JP Morgan needs to establish measures that will help it review its policies on a more constant level by taking into consideration the consumer feedback extensively.

Opportunities

By Merging with Bank One, JP Morgan has embarked on a number of myriad business options Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). Additionally, this merger can be said to have opened up new business opportunities for JP Morgan by expanding its presence in the Midwest since in this region, Bank One is accepted as a market leader. By using this partnership, JP Morgan can be able to reduce the impact of the bank probes leveraged against it. Moreover, JP Morgan has established roots in over 60 countries around the globe (Anderson, 2013). However, it can be argued that the bank has an open opportunity to expand its business operations but it is not vigorously pursuing the idea.

Threats

JP Morgan is facing stiff competition from international and local banking sectors most especially given the current criminal probes the bank is facing and the restrained economic climates (Kaur & Malhotra, 2016). Now, it can be argued that the bank has tried, as much as possible to remain afloat based on the rich vein of assets and financial probes it possesses (Anderson, 2013). In this case, JP Morgan has to establish ways that can ensure that its criminal probes does not offer a competitive advantage to its competitors like Citigroup (Professional academy, 2016).

PESTLE ANALYSIS

Political factors

Being a multinational banking institution that operates around the globe, JP Morgan has a number of political factors that are affecting its overall banking performance (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). Additionally, being a multination asset company is much profitable but any instability in the political factors in the country in which they are operating may result in adverse implications (Anderson, 2013). In this case, heavy taxations and legal assistance because of the high criminal probes that the Bank ids facing can result into a high and fall situation to the banking sector (Anderson, 2013). In fact, it is because of the heavy legal penalties and regulations that JP Morgan is currently under criminal probes.

Economic factors

JP Morgan is one of the leading financial asset management banks in the history of America. In this case, by analysing its economic environment, it is clear that the current situation in the banking industry can be effectively being determined (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). In this case, Because of the inflation situation in the U.S, most investors are of the opinion that the unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus can result in the reduction in value of the U.S Dollar and in the process, lead to higher level so inflation. In so doing, this can make JP Morgan to lose its potential investors in the wake of the on-going criminal probes for fear of the company collapsing. On the consumer level, based on the current situation, it can be said that the consumer confidence of JP Morgan is admirably high (Kaur & Malhotra, 2016).

Social

The cultural and social influences to business operations vary depending on the country. In this case, investing in a country that has stable income and labour are important for the success of JP Morgan. In this case, JP Morgan must invest in countries that possess stable income levels, stable wages, and labour (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015).

Technological

JP Morgan takes a multi-faced approach when it comes to technological sustainability that makes an important component of their operations (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). In this case, most of their technological adoption is mainly driven by the growth of their financial services coupled with regulatory obligations. In so doing, JP Morgan has tried to influence vendors to offer approaches and products that maintain or reduce costs while at the same time increase product utilization (Anderson, 2013). In fact, JP Morgan has established engineered solutions that ensure maximization of resource efficiency.

Legal

This is the most important part of the recommendation strategy mainly because the current criminal probes that JP Morgan result from the fact that it went against some legal frameworks that govern the banking sector (Duffy & O’Rourke, 2015). In other words, since JP Morgan invests heavily in cyber insurance coupled with other legal agreements that allow the government to take necessary controls in case of any malice activity, it is possible for JP Morgan to undergo various criminal probes and investigations that are allowed by the constitution and the banking sector Regulation ACT. However, by establishing legal agreements with the government that will see to it that the government intervenes in case of a problem will ensure that JP Morgan stays secure in a big way.

Environment

In case of adverse climatic conditions and natural calamities like drought, then JP Morgan will be handed with a financial blow (Kaur & Malhotra, 2016). However, the challenges that can be incurred because of adverse climatic conditions and natural calamities can be dealt with through proper insurance policies (Anderson, 2013). However, as much as these assets can be recovered through insurance, it is acknowledged that any calamity on a big investment bank can cause a temporary fall in its stocks.

References

Smart, A., & Creelman, J. (2013). Risk-Based Performance Management: An Explanation of This New Strategic Paradigm. In Risk-Based Performance Management (pp. 23-52). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Anderson, K. (2013). A feasibility plan to develop a boutique sustainable private equity business to cater for ultra-high net worth individuals (Doctoral dissertation, Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University).

Duffy, M., & O’Rourke, B. K. (2015). Dialogue in Strategy Practice A Discourse Analysis of a Strategy Workshop. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(4), 404-426.

Kaur, R., & Malhotra, H. (2016). SWOT Analysis of M-Commerce. Securing Transactions and Payment Systems for M-Commerce, 48.

Professional academy. (2016). Marketing theories- Pestel analysis. Retrieved from http://www.professionalacademy.com/blogs-and-advice/marketing-theories---pestel-analysis.

Pultarova, T. (2014). JPMorgan suffers massive data breach despite cyber-security investment. Engineering and Technology magazine. Retrieved from http://eandt.theiet.org/news/2014/oct/jp-morgan-cyber-attack.cfm