With banks starting to release first quarter earnings this week, early results show the potential extent of the coronavirus’ impact  on national banks operating in Connecticut.

Wells Fargo’s profits plunged nearly 90 percent in the first quarter as the bank had to set aside billions of dollars to cover potentially bad loans due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said Tuesday that it boosted its loan loss provisions – or the money set aside to cover potentially bad loans – to $3.83 billion from $845 million a year ago as borrowers face the possibility of going broke because the coronavirus has effectively shut down the U.S. economy and others around the world.

Wells reported first-quarter earnings of $653 million, or 1 cent per share, down 89 percent from a $5.9 billion profit in last year’s first quarter. The San Francisco-based bank said it had revenue of $17.1 billion in the quarter, down from $21.6 billion for the same period in 2019. The numbers fell well short of Wall Street expectations; however, those targets became considerably less achievable as huge swaths of the U.S. economy shut down in mid-March in an effort to slow the spread of coronavirus.

JPMorgan Chase had net income of $2.865 billion, down 69 percent from the first quarter of 2019. Earnings per share were $0.78 in the first quarter compared to $2.65 at the same time last year. The bank attributed the decrease primarily to the need to build credit reserves across the firm due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Earnings for Chase’s Consumer and Community Banking showed an even steeper decline. First quarter net income was $191 million compared to $3.947 billion in the first quarter last year. The 95 percent drop was also attributed primarily to reserve builds.

The reserve builds drove the consumer bank’s provision for credit losses to $5.8 billion, up $4.5 billion from the prior year.

“The first quarter delivered some unprecedented challenges and required us to focus on what we as a bank could do – outside of our ordinary course of business – to remain strong, resilient and well-positioned to support all of our stakeholders,” JPMorgan Chase President and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement.

Despite the impact of the coronavirus, Dimon said the consumer and community bank in March opened 500,000 new accounts for card customers and extended over $6 billion of new and increased credit lines. He added that the consumer bank lent over $500 million to small businesses in March.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.