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[PREVIEW] Helen Cahill, Financial Correspondent

The boss of JP Morgan said the Wall Street bank will hire more artificial intelligence specialists and fewer dealmakers amid increasing automation in the financial system.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JP Morgan, raised the prospect of a greater focus on AI hires as global banks are using the technology to cut tens of thousands of jobs.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Dimon said: “I think it will reduce our jobs down the road. There will be all different types of jobs, and I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories, and it will make them more productive.

Dimon’s comments came after Bill Winters, the boss of Standard Chartered, faced a backlash among shareholders, employees and the former president of Singapore for saying the bank would use AI to replace “lower-value human capital”. Dimon said Winters is “a friend of mine” and that “all of us say something incorrectly”, adding: “He’s already come back and taken that back. It was an inartful way to say something.”

Read more: https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-markets/article/jpmorgan-boss-ai-will-mean-bank-hires-fewer-dealmakers-nb0fkshdh?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded

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Jason and Susan Llewellyn hoped their four-week tour of Mexico in February would be the holiday of a lifetime.

Instead, the couple from Broadstairs in Kent found themselves chasing their travel insurer for an early flight home and more than £9,000.

Three days into the holiday, Jason, 58, a fishmonger, fell 150 feet down a mountainside, dislocating his shoulder, breaking his pelvis, cracking his spine in three places and ripping his abdominal muscles.

A stretcher brought by the paramedics could not take him down the narrow mountain roads so he was strapped onto an inflatable raft and paddled two miles down the river to a waiting ambulance. Doctors said he was lucky to be alive.

Two months on, though and it was the insurer Zurich that was still causing the couple pain, having failed to reimburse them for thousands of pounds’ worth of hospital bills, international phone calls and credit card interest.

Zurich, which underwrote their annual £505 policy with Insure and Go, even asked them to sign a document saying that if it paid for their £20,000 repatriation flight, it had the right to claim the money back from the couple.

“It put us through hell.” said Susan, 53, who is an accountant. “No one should have to face such incompetence when dealing with a life and death situation, and the financial strain of having to pay upfront for everything.”

Read more: https://www.thetimes.com/money/family-finances/article/i-fell-150ft-down-a-mountain-in-mexico-why-the-quibbling-over-my-claim-z3fltb3qp?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded

https://www.thetimes.com/money/mortgages/article/the-rise-of-the-mortgage-free-first-time-buyer-6vhbrzmpj?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Reddit&utm_content=branded

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One in ten first-time buyers are buying homes outright with cash.

The estate agency Hamptons said that those who did not need a mortgage made up 10 per cent of first-home buyers between January 1 and May 13 this year — up from 8.2 per cent in the same period of 2023.

The estate agency Savills said that gifts and loans from the Bank of Mum and Dad totalled £9.6 billion in 2024, which would make it the UK’s seventh-largest mortgage lender.

Emma Fildes, who runs the property buying agency Brickweaver, said: “Many first-time buyers, fortunate enough to have help from the Bank of Mum and Dad, are capitalising on price falls. Being chain-free and cash-only gives them a massive advantage over potential borrowers even if their offer may be slightly lower. 

“This year, several of my clients were first-time buyers who, aided by parental funds, bought properties with cash in north and south London. Both opted to buy houses to avoid paying stamp duty again within a few years if they needed to scale up.”

Charlotte Mantle from Strutt & Parker estate agents said: “I’ve been helping a young man in his early 20s with his house search in Chelsea. While he’s living in a house share in south London after university, his parents are gifting him a budget of over £3 million for a three to four-bedroom house with a garden.

“The caveat is that the parents are really driving the search; they’re attending every viewing, have the power of veto, and are likely to make the final decision.”

Mortgage rates have risen since the war in Iran began at the end of February. It has pushed up oil prices, raising fears of higher inflation, which drives banks to raise rates. The average two-year fixed rate has gone up 0.91 percentage points to 5.75 per cent, according to the financial data firm Moneyfacts.

The 11th fairway of the Garrison Golf Club in the Hudson Valley is now a beauty spot dedicated to the Bard — all thanks to a wealthy benefactor