Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) has warned there will be “consequences” if the new prime minister Andy Burnham raises the banking surcharge.

On the Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, Dimon said he wants Burnham to succeed and to see the UK “thrive,” adding that he would like JPMC to continue to see London as its home. He argued that any increase in banking taxes would be “one more negative on that bucket of things you got to think about”.

“I mean, it may sound great, ‘tax the banks,’ but it’s $5bn that my shareholders paid on that extra tax,” said Dimon, on the podcast.

“I just think things like that have adverse consequences.”

The banking surcharge was introduced in 2016, as an 8 per cent tax on profits in addition to corporation tax. This remained in place until 2023, when it was reduced to 3 per cent by then prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Experts in the city have closely examined Burnham’s approach to the financial services sector, and whether he would heed calls by the Trades Union Congress to return the banking surcharge to its previous level.

On the surcharge, Dimon said he “always thought it was wrong” and felt it unfairly implied JPMC had damaged the UK economy.

JPMC is in the final planning and design phase for its new £3 billion tower in Canary Wharf, which when finished will cover three‑million square feet and act as its London headquarters for some 12,000 employees.

In May, Dimon told Bloomberg that JPMC could look again at its plans to invest in the London development if the successor to Keir Starmer was “hostile to the banks”.

When pressed on whether JPMC would go ahead with the project if the banking surcharge were increased, Dimon stopped short of a direct threat.

“I don’t know what I would do, I wouldn’t make a binary decision like that,” he said.

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