Dimon Says Federal Programs Working

The Federal Reserve Board's program to get banks lending again is starting to work, and other federal stimulus efforts are starting to show signs of success, James Dimon, the chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said Tuesday.

During a meeting of the Business Council, Dimon credited the Fed's Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility with bringing liquidity to the credit card and student loan markets.

"The Talf program seems to be working in credit cards, so credit card, student loan and other rates are coming down," Dimon said.

Estimating that government stimulus efforts globally will top $4 trillion, Dimon said: "In total they are a pretty overwhelming force. No particular one is going to make the most dramatic difference. If one of them fails, the rest of them can work" and bring the economy into recovery.

In fact, the Fed said Tuesday that it received $10.6 billion of loan requests during the latest round of Talf lending.

The volume is a sign that investors are warming up to the program. Last month the central bank received just $1.7 billion of requests.

More than half of Tuesday's requests — $5.5 billion — were securities backed by credit card loans. Another $2.2 billion came from securities backed by auto loans.

For the first time since the program launched in March, the Fed received loan requests using assets backed by student, small-business and equipment loans.

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