JPMorgan nears $4bn mortgage claims deal JPMorgan Chase is nearing an agreement to pay $4bn to settle allegations by the Federal Housing Finance Agency that it mis-sold mortgage-backed securities, according to people familiar with the matter. The negotiations between the bank and the housing regulator are part of broader talks to resolve allegations of mortgage wrongdoing that also involve the US Department of Justice and Eric Schneiderman, the New York attorney-general. JPMorgan and the regulators are engaged on a dual-track process. One would end with a multi-agency settlement. An alternative would result in a $4bn settlement with the FHFA while leaving remaining issues to be settled at another time. One obstacle to a broader settlement is that the bank has resisted an admission of criminal wrongdoing. JPMorgan and the FHFA declined to comment on the preliminary deal, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. JPMorgan took a $9.2bn litigation charge last week, most of which is attributed to lawsuits accusing JPMorgan and two companies it bought in 2008 - Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual - of packaging poor quality home loans into securities that later plunged in value. Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan, said last week: "It's a board-level decision" and directors wanted "consideration for all the things the company went through to help" during the financial crisis. This was in reference to JPMorgan's acquisitions of WaMu and Bear during the crisis, which were encouraged by the US government to prevent their failure. The FHFA, a government regulator, sued 17 institutions in 2011, claiming the banks had mis-sold MBS to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage companies that were bailed out in 2008. It has demanded billions of dollars from several of the banks to settle the action before trial. It had demanded as much as $6bn of JPMorgan. JPMorgan last week enumerated its litigation reserves - an enormous $23bn - for the first time and said that "reasonable possible losses" on top of that amount were $5.7bn. Other institutions have settled with the FHFA, including Citigroup, UBS and General Electric.