Some banks are innovative deal-makers, others are volume players. In the world of risk management we reward JP Morgan for having something in addition: a mission and an ability to explain the product as well as use it. This may not create the greatest revenues today, although $1 billion from derivatives in two quarters last year is not bad - but more important it lays the basis for repeat business in coming years and decades, not only for JP Morgan but for others that follow.
This is not altruism, we're sure it's enlightened self-interest, but it fits with an era in which silo-like competition between firms is losing its advantage, while transparent dealing through open portals to multiple dealers seems to be the way forward. It is the competition of openness and transparency, and no firm has embraced this more in the risk management area than JP Morgan.
In the last year alone it has launched nearly a dozen toolboxes on the internet to give derivatives and risk management users a sharper view of instruments, volatilities, indexes to trade and hedge with. JP Morgan has also been behind, or signed up to, most of the major web-based initiatives to improve derivatives trading and settlement.