Banks Poised to Pay Dividends After 3-Year Gap

``As the financial crisis worsened in 2008 and 2009, all but a handful of financial institutions cut their once-lucrative dividends to just pennies a share, hurting ordinary investors who had come to see them as sources of income. JPMorgan, for example, now has a dividend of 20 cents a share annually, down from $1.52 before the crisis... “The return of dividends signals that the banks are back, and the Federal Reserve wants to inspire confidence in the marketplace so that banks lend more.” ''