JPMorgan eyes more growth in India amid flurry of activity

There’s definitely been a flurry of activity that makes India a super exciting place to have a large team on the ground,” said Filippo Gori, its co-head of global banking in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday

JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to keep growing its operations in India, where investor confidence continues to be strong, according to its top executives who are on a visit to the country.

“There’s definitely been a flurry of activity that makes India a super exciting place to have a large team on the ground,” said Filippo Gori, its co-head of global banking in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Tuesday. Deal activity is from “global clients coming into the country, local clients playing in the country and local clients who also have ambition abroad,” Gori said about the market that has its second-largest employee footprint after the US.

Apart from transactions in the healthcare and artificial intelligence sectors, the themes of “India for India” and “India for the world” are seeing a lot of deal-making activity, Gori said. JPMorgan is seeking to expand its businesses covering clients, as well as resources that provide global support to the firm, he said.

There is a substantial opportunity for India from the shift in supply chains from China, though the transition will take years as firms navigate the complexities of relocating operations, JPMorgan’s Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said in a separate interview with CNBC-TV18.

“You’re talking about 5, 10, 15 years. So even if it’s going to take place, it’s going to take a long time,” Dimon said.

Gori said China’s latest stimulus measures has sparked some optimism, though investors will likely wait until the US elections “before pulling back into the mainland.” China’s central bank unleashed an unprecedented blitz of policy support for the economy, after Wall Street banks downgraded their forecasts.

Time will tell if confidence is restored in China, he said. “That doesn’t happen overnight,” Gori said. “From my personal point of view, restoring consumer confidence among the local Chinese is probably more important long-term than just creating a stimulus for the foreign investors.”

Separately, India has been a “trendsetter” across the world with Unified Payments Interface, its real-time digital platform, according to Max Neukirchen, global payments co-head.

“The future of payments globally is being shaped out of India,” Neukirchen said in an interview on Tuesday. UPI, as the public payments network is known, developed a whole ecosystem of fintech companies and they aim to bring those innovations to the world, he said.