JP Morgan Chase & Co had been looking to reduce its lending to businesses as risks loomed to its reputation. This was in the middle of a period of heightened regulatory investigation, said a Wall Street Journal reports while citing sources that were close to the situation.

JP Morgan is the biggest US bank by assets. It had launched an internal review of its commercial lending clients which could result in cutting lending costs with companies such as pawnshops, check casher, payday lenders and some car dealerships. This was according to the same report from Wall Street Journal.

The process could reduce hundreds of millions of dollars from the annual revenue of the bank, reported the Journal quoting one of the sources.

The bank was also in discussions to settle a federal and state mortgage probe valued USD11 billion.

A representative from JP Morgan was not immediately available to be reached for a comment outside regular US business hours.