JPMorgan Renews Partnership with Military College Institute

JPMorgan Chase will renew its commitment to support the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, an interdisciplinary national institute focused on the issues affecting military members after they leave the service that the bank co-founded with Syracuse University.

The bank said Monday that it will commit $13.8 million to the institute through 2020. Altogether JPMorgan is investing $45 million in programs aimed at helping veterans and their families, the company said in a news release.

In 2015 the institute assisted more than 32,000 transitioning service members, veterans and their families, according to the release.

JPMorgan and other banks have faced criticism over the years for their treatment of veterans and service members, with many boosting programs aimed at veterans and military personnel to counteract this image.

In 2011 JPMorgan overhauled its lending practices to military personnel after news that it had not enforced a law that protected military members from foreclosure and high-cost credit.

In February 2015 JPMorgan was among five mortgage servicers that agreed in a settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to pay out more than $123 million to nearly 1,000 service members and their co-borrowers for nonjudicial foreclosures that were said to violate the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act. The other servicers were subsidiaries of Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial and Bank of America.

"The past five years have seen improvements across the board in how our nation understands and supports veterans and military families, in no small way due to the work" of the institute, JPMorgan Chief Operating Officer Matt Zames said in the release. "Our continued collaboration will build on that growth and introduce new research and programs around employment, small business, and financial capability for veterans and their families."