Nearly half of all Americans are worried they can't save $400 for an emergency, exposing a need for better financial education, J.P. Morgan Chase's consumer banking chief Thasunda Duckett said Friday.

"What we are not doing well, one that we still have to focus on, is that 46% of Americans are concerned about saving $400 in the event of an emergency," Duckett said in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin on CNBC's Squawk Box. "What we have to continue to do as an industry is to educate our customers and let them know the importance of and how they can get on a path to saving."



The situation is more dire in the African-American community, said Duckett. The median net worth of a single black man or woman is about $200 to $300, compared to $15,000 to $28,000 for white counterparts, she said.

"We still have to make sure that access to capital, access to building that rainy day fund, is accessible to all Americans around the country," Duckett said.

Banks including J.P. Morgan, the largest U.S. lender by assets, have begun to adopt auto-saving features as part of their digital banking platforms in an effort to make saving easier.