The CEO of US multinational banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co. has signalled that he anticipates growing partnerships between banking leviathans and online peer-to-peer (P2P) lender platforms.

Speaking to the US business news outlet Bloomberg, Jamie Dimon appeared to change his tone from the cautious defensiveness he had adopted toward the alternative finance sector back in April. In a letter to investors, he warned that “Silicon Valley is coming” – a clear suggestion that the financial establishment should man the ramparts for an impending attack.

Fast forward to March 2016 and his approach appeared far more relaxed and conciliatory toward P2P lenders, commenting: “It’s nothing mystical.”

In December last year, JPMorgan had declared in a memo that during 2016, “one of our major priorities will be to aggressively pursue the innovative technologies."

While Dimon omitted to mention any forthcoming innovations within JP Morgan during his Bloomberg interview, he made it clear that the bank would be willing to partner with P2P lender start-ups, who possess the agile technology to offer loans to SMEs and individuals (which banks tend to consider high-risk) far, far quicker than the banks.

He cited the example of a JPMorgan customer who had a $200,000 loan with the bank but who needed an additional $20,000 to buy a new truck. A P2P lender could probably deliver the loan within days if not hours, whereas the bank’s processes can take two weeks. Such a customer could be helped by a partner P2P lender, he implied.

With a US banking colossus such as JPMorgan adopting this approach, it’s likely to spread to the UK and Europe.