JPMorgan Flags Rising Advisor Pay in 2026 Expense Forecast

It’s that time of year that reminds everyone how much better it is to give than receive.

JPMorgan is in the holiday spirit (or as much as it can get, anyway), considering how much it expects to pay advisors next year. And of course, that’s far from being a charitable gesture. During this week’s Goldman Sachs conference, JPMorgan Consumer & Community Banking CEO Marianne Lake told the audience that the company is planning for considerably higher expenses next year, in part because of incentive compensation for financial advisors.

“We feel really great about the expenses, not just how we’re investing the money, but also in the context of the performance of the business,” Lake said, according to a report by the Financial Times. 

Humbug

The bank’s expenses are expected to be around $105 billion in 2026, or an increase of about 9% over 2025’s, a figure that surpassed the highest forecasts made by analysts, several publications reported. Aside from advisor compensation, other factors contributing to the higher projected costs are AI investments, marketing expenses, allocations to bank locations and inflation, the FT noted. Investors did not appear to be feeling the holiday spirit, and JPMorgan Chase stock (JPM) took a slight hit, falling more than 5% on Tuesday afternoon. It’s recovered by about 2% since then, and it remains up by 28% year to date.

At least, it might be some good news for advisors broadly:

• Financial professionals are increasingly competing on fees but simultaneously feel pressure to provide more services to clients, with the standard fee 1% of assets under advisement seemingly going away, according to a report earlier this year by Cerulli Associates. 
• While smaller accounts, of $100,000 or more, might be charged an average of 1.25%, fees are typically lower than 1% for $5-million-plus clients and around 66 basis points for those with $10 million.

Can’t Afford to Make Idle People Merry. Incentive compensation isn’t necessarily a big pull for younger advisors, who increasingly favor defined career paths, training and coaching, a survey this year by DeVoe found. Even Ebenezer Scrooge might feel good about that.