**US banking giant JPMorgan Chase saw profits between July and September that were much better than expected.**It made a a net income of $3.6bn (£2.5bn), compared with $527m in the same period of 2008.
Strong performance in its investment banking division cancelled out losses on credit cards and consumer loans.
JPMorgan Chase is the first of the big US banks to report third quarter results, with Goldman Sachs due on Thursday and Bank of America on Friday.
JPMorgan’s boss warned that the cost of credit was likely to remain high “for the foreseeable future”.
“Accordingly, we have added $2bn to our consumer credit reserves, bringing the firmwide total to $31.5bn,” said Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chairman and chief executive in its results statement.
The consumer lending business posted a net loss of $1bn, up from $659m in the same period of last year.
Card services made a net loss of $700m, which was an improvement on the $992m lost in the third quarter of 2008.