Exclusive: JPMorgan pressures massive supplier network to increase spending with Black and Hispanic businesses or risk losing their multimillion-dollar contracts

Exclusive: JPMorgan pressures massive supplier network to increase spending with Black and Hispanic businesses or risk losing their multimillion-dollar contracts

Hundreds of companies across the US depend on their contracts with JPMorgan. From tech and law firms that consult with the bank to manufacturers that make its custom pens and notebooks, these suppliers can earn million-dollar profits from a contract with JPMorgan. In an announcement shared exclusively with Insider, JPMorgan is urging its 100 largest business partners to accelerate spending with Black- and Hispanic-owned businesses. Failure to do so means JPMorgan may terminate its contract with the supplier, said Brian Lamb, the firm's global head of diversity and inclusion. If a supplier doesn't increase its spending with Black- or Hispanic-owned businesses, JPMorgan would first downgrade its contract from preferred or "Gold Status" to "regular," according to a company spokesperson. "We fully expect our suppliers to perform on this," Lamb told Insider. "And when they don't, we obviously have made it very clear that we'll hold them accountable for that." Forty percent of JPMorgan's largest 100 suppliers have formally agreed to increase their spending with Black- or Hispanic-owned businesses, and some $6.2 billion will be directed to minority-owned businesses over the next three years, Lamb said. A representative from the bank said the firm expected suppliers to spend a "significant" amount