JPMorgan and Citigroup keep dividend unchanged as rivals including Morgan Stanley boost payouts

cnbc.com:

JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup said Monday that increasingly stringent capital requirements forced the firms to keep their dividend unchanged while rivals announced bumps to their quarterly payouts.

Bank of America said that it was raising its quarterly dividend by 5% to 22 cents per share. Morgan Stanley said it was raising the payout 11% to 77.5 cents per share. Wells Fargo boosted its dividend 20% to 30 cents a share.

Goldman Sachs appeared to have one of the larger dividend increases, a 25% bump to $2.50 per share. Last week, analysts had highlight Goldman's results, saying that it was a surprise winner of the Federal Reserve's annual stress tests and that it would have more capital flexibility as a result.

While all 34 banks involved in the regulatory exercise passed last week, analysts focused on the biggest American banks including JPMorgan, saying that an unexpected rise in stress capital buffers would mean they might have to keep dividends flat and scale back or even eliminate share buybacks.

JPMorgan confirmed some of those fears on Monday, saying that «higher future capital requirements» are the reason it intends to keep its quarterly dividend frozen at $1 per share. Minutes later, Citigroup disclosed that it was keeping its quarterly payout at 51 cents.

«We will continue to use our capital to invest in and grow our market-leading businesses, pay a sustainable dividend and we will retain capital to fully satisfy our future regulatory requirements,» JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in the release. He added that the Fed exams showed that the industry could serve as a «source of strength for the broader economy» during times of tumult.

When asked about the stock repurchase plans of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, a