JPMorgan Chase is relaxing some of its lending restrictions on shares in recently listed companies as the bank seeks to win more wealthy clients from rapidly expanding technology businesses, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Under its standard policy, JPMorgan generally does not accept shares as collateral for loans when the company has been publicly traded for fewer than 135 days.
However, the bank reportedly made an exception around SpaceX’s initial public offering in June. Ahead of the listing, JPMorgan told its bankers that it would be prepared to lend against shares in Elon Musk’s rocket and artificial intelligence company sooner than its usual policy allows, according to the FT.
Anthropic could receive similar treatment
JPMorgan bankers expect the lender could adopt a comparable approach when Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, eventually goes public, the report said.
The potential flexibility highlights the bank’s efforts to build relationships with founders, executives and other wealthy individuals associated with fast-growing technology companies.
However, the FT noted that JPMorgan has not yet reached a final decision on how it would handle lending against Anthropic shares following any future public listing.