JP Morgan

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational finance corporation headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware. It is the largest bank in the United States, and the world's largest bank by market capitalization as of 2024. As the largest of the Big Four banks in America, the firm is considered systemically important by the Financial Stability Board. Its size and scale have often led to enhanced regulatory oversight as well as the maintenance of an internal "Fortress Balance Sheet". The firm is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan and is set return to its former location at the new under-construction JPMorgan Chase Building at 270 Park Avenue in November 2025.

JPMorgan Chase was created in 2000 by the merger of New York City banks J.P. Morgan & Co. and Chase Manhattan Company. Through its predecessors, the firm's early history can be traced to 1799, with the founding of what became the Bank of the Manhattan Company. J.P. Morgan & Co. was founded in 1871 by the American financier J. P. Morgan, who launched the House of Morgan on 23 Wall Street as a national purveyor of commercial, investment, and private banking services. Today, the firm is a major provider of investment banking services, through corporate advisory, mergers and acquisitions, sales and trading, and public offerings. Their private banking franchise and asset management division are among the world's largest in terms of total assets. Its retail banking and credit card offerings are provided via the Chase brand in the U.S. and United Kingdom.

JPMorgan Chase is the world's fifth largest bank by total assets, with $ in total assets as of 2024 The firm operates the largest investment bank in the world by revenue. It occupies the 24th spot on the ''Fortune'' 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by revenue. In 2023, JPMorgan Chase was ranked #1 in the ''Forbes'' Global 2000 ranking. The company's balance sheet, geographic footprint, and thought leadership have yielded a substantial market share in banking and a high level of brand loyalty. Alternatively, it receives routine criticism for its risk management, broad financing activities, and large-scale legal settlements.

History

JPMorgan Chase is the result of the combination of several large U.S. banking companies that merged since 1996, combining Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., and Bank One, as well as asset assumptions of Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, and First Republic. Predecessors included additional historic, major banking firms, among which are Chemical Bank, Manufacturers Hanover, First Chicago Bank, National Bank of Detroit, Texas Commerce Bank, Providian Financial and Great Western Bank. The company's oldest predecessor institution, The Bank of the Manhattan Company, was the third-oldest banking corporation in the United States, and the 31st-oldest bank in the world, having been established on September 1, 1799, by Aaron Burr.

Chase Manhattan Bank

The Chase Manhattan Bank was formed upon the 1955 purchase of Chase National Bank (established in 1877) by The Bank of the Manhattan Company (established in 1799), the company's oldest predecessor institution. The Bank of the Manhattan Company was the creation of Aaron Burr, who transformed the company from a water carrier into a bank.

According to page 115 of ''An Empire of Wealth'' by John Steele Gordon, the origin of this strand of JPMorgan Chase's history runs as follows:

At the turn of the nineteenth century, obtaining a bank charter required an act of the state legislature. This, of course, injected a powerful element of politics into the process and invited what today would be called corruption but then was regarded as business as usual. Hamilton's political enemy—and eventual murderer— Aaron Burr was able to create a bank by sneaking a clause into a charter for a company called The Manhattan Company to provide clean water to New York City. The innocuous-looking clause allowed the company to invest surplus capital in any lawful enterprise. Within six months of the company's creation, and long before it had laid a single section of water pipe, the company opened a bank, the Bank of the Manhattan Company. Still in existence, it is today JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States.

Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and 1980s, Chase Manhattan emerged as one of the largest and most prestigious banks, with leadership positions in syndicated lending, treasury and securities services, credit cards, mortgages, and retail financial services. Weakened by the real estate collapse in the early 1990s, it was acquired by Chemical Bank in 1996, retaining the Chase name. Before its merger with J.P. Morgan & Co., the new Chase expanded the investment and asset management groups through two acquisitions. In 1999, it acquired San Francisco–based Hambrecht & Quist for $1.35 billion. In April 2000, UK-based Robert Fleming & Co. was purchased by the new Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion.

Chemical Banking Corporation

The New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was founded in 1823 as a maker of various chemicals. In 1824, the company amended its charter to perform banking activities and created the Chemical Bank of New York. After 1851, the bank was separated from its parent and grew organically and through a series of mergers, most notably with Corn Exchange Bank in 1954, Texas Commerce Bank (a large bank in Texas) in 1986, and Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in 1991 (the first major bank merger "among equals"). In the 1980s and early 1990s, Chemical emerged as one of the leaders in the financing of leveraged buyout transactions. In 1984, Chemical launched Chemical Venture Partners to invest in private equity transactions alongside various financial sponsors. By the late 1980s, Chemical developed its reputation for financing buyouts, building a syndicated leveraged finance business and related advisory businesses under the auspices of the pioneering investment banker, Jimmy Lee. At many points throughout this history, Chemical Bank was the largest bank in the United States (either in terms of assets or deposit market share).

In 1996, Chemical Bank acquired Chase Manhattan. Although Chemical was the nominal survivor, it took the better-known Chase name. To this day, JPMorgan Chase retains Chemical's pre-1996 stock price history, as well as Chemical's former headquarters site at 270 Park Avenue (the current building was demolished and a larger replacement headquarters is being built on the same site).

J.P. Morgan and Company

The House of Morgan was born out of the partnership of Drexel, Morgan & Co., which in 1895 was renamed J.P. Morgan & Co. (see also: J. Pierpont Morgan). J.P. Morgan & Co. financed the formation of the United States Steel Corporation, which took over the business of Andrew Carnegie and others and was the world's first billion dollar corporation. In 1895, J.P. Morgan & Co. supplied the United States government with $62 million in gold to float a bond issue and restore the treasury surplus of $100 million. In 1892, the company began to finance the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and led it through a series of acquisitions that made it the dominant railroad transporter in New England.

Built in 1914, 23 Wall Street was the bank's headquarters for decades. On September 16, 1920, a terrorist bomb exploded in front of the bank, injuring 400 and killing 38. Shortly before the bomb went off, a warning note was placed in a mailbox at the corner of Cedar Street and Broadway. The case has never been solved, and was rendered inactive by the FBI in 1940.

In August 1914, Henry P. Davison, a Morgan partner, made a deal with the Bank of England to make J.P. Morgan & Co. the monopoly underwriter of war bonds for the UK and France. The Bank of England became a " fiscal agent" of J.P. Morgan & Co., and vice versa. The company also invested in the suppliers of war equipment to Britain and France. The company profited from the financing and purchasing activities of the two European governments. Since the U.S. federal government withdrew from world affairs under successive isolationist Republican administrations in the 1920s, J.P. Morgan & Co. continued playing a major role in global affairs since most European countries still owed war debts.

In the 1930s, J.P. Morgan & Co. and all integrated banking businesses in the United States were required by the provisions of the Glass–Steagall Act to separate their investment banking from their commercial banking operations. J.P. Morgan & Co. chose to operate as a commercial bank.

In 1935, after being barred from the securities business for over a year, the heads of J.P. Morgan spun off its investment-banking operations. Led by J.P. Morgan partners, Henry S. Morgan (son of Jack Morgan and grandson of J. Pierpont Morgan) and Harold Stanley, Morgan Stanley was founded on September 16, 1935, with $6.6 million of nonvoting preferred stock from J.P. Morgan partners. To bolster its position, in 1959, J.P. Morgan merged with the Guaranty Trust Company of New York to form the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company. The bank would continue to operate as Morgan Guaranty Trust until the 1980s, before migrating back to the use of the J.P. Morgan brand. In 1984, the group purchased the Purdue National Corporation of Lafayette, Indiana. In 1988, the company once again began operating exclusively as J.P. Morgan & Co.

The Bank began operations in Japan in 1924, in Australia during the later part of the nineteenth century, and in Indonesia during the early 1920s. An office of the Equitable Eastern Banking Corporation (one of J.P. Morgan's predecessors) opened a branch in China in 1921 and Chase National Bank was established there in 1923. The bank has operated in Saudi Arabia and India since the 1930s. Chase Manhattan Bank opened an office in South Korea in 1967. The firm's presence in Greece dates to 1968."Central & Eastern Europe"
. JPMorgan Chase. Retrieved June 8, 2012. An office of JPMorgan was opened in Taiwan in 1970, in Russia (Soviet Union) in 1973, and Nordic operations began during the same year. Operations in Poland began in 1995.

Bank One Corporation

In 2004, JPMorgan Chase merged with Chicago-based Bank One Corp., bringing on board current chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon as president and COO. He succeeded former CEO William B. Harrison Jr. Dimon introduced new cost-cutting strategies, and replaced former JPMorgan Chase executives in key positions with Bank One executives—many of whom were with Dimon at Citigroup. Dimon became CEO in December 2005 and chairman in December 2006. Bank One Corporation was formed with the 1998 merger of Banc One of Columbus, Ohio and First Chicago NBD. This merger was considered a failure until Dimon took over and reformed the new firm's practices. Dimon effected changes to make Bank One Corporation a viable merger partner for JPMorgan Chase.

Bank One Corporation, formerly First Bancgroup of Ohio, was founded as a holding company for City National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, and several other banks in that state, all of which were renamed "Bank One" when the holding company was renamed Banc One Corporation. With the beginning of interstate banking they spread into other states, always renaming acquired banks "Bank One." After the First Chicago NBD merger, adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors. JPMorgan Chase completed the merger with Bank One in the third quarter of 2004.

Bear Stearns

At the end of 2007, Bear Stearns was the fifth largest investment bank in the United States but its market capitalization had deteriorated through the second half of the year. On Friday, March 14, 2008, Bear Stearns lost 47% of its equity market value as rumors emerged that clients were withdrawing capital from the bank. Over the following weekend, it emerged that Bear Stearns might prove insolvent, and on March 15, 2008, the Federal Reserve engineered a deal to prevent a wider systemic crisis from the collapse of Bear Stearns.

On March 16, 2008, after a weekend of intense negotiations between JPMorgan, Bear, and the federal government, JPMorgan Chase announced its plans to acquire Bear Stearns in a stock swap worth $2.00 per share or $240 million pending shareholder approval scheduled within 90 days. In the interim, JPMorgan Chase agreed to guarantee all Bear Stearns trades and business process flows. On March 18, 2008, JPMorgan Chase formally announced the acquisition of Bear Stearns for $236 million. The stock swap agreement was signed that night.

On March 24, 2008, after public discontent over the low acquisition price threatened the deal's closure, a revised offer was announced at approximately $10 per share. Under the revised terms, JPMorgan also immediately acquired a 39.5% stake in Bear Stearns using newly issued shares at the new offer price and gained a commitment from the board, representing another 10% of the share capital, that its members would vote in favor of the new deal. With sufficient commitments to ensure a successful shareholder vote, the merger was completed on May 30, 2008.

Washington Mutual

On September 25, 2008, JPMorgan Chase bought most of the banking operations of Washington Mutual from the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That night, the Office of Thrift Supervision, in what was by far the largest bank failure in American history, had seized Washington Mutual Bank and placed it into receivership. The FDIC sold the bank's assets, secured debt obligations, and deposits to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.836 billion, which re-opened the bank the following day.

However, Chase did not purchase any mortgages in the FDIC receivership as the loans had already been sold off into Washington Mutual-branded mortgage-backed securities long before the receivership happened on September 25, 2008. If Chase wanted ownership of any Washington Mutual mortgages, they had to purchase them from the FDIC by way of a Receiver's Deed or Bill of Sale. This could not occur, as there were no mortgages on Washington Mutual Bank's books at time of receivership. Any recorded Assignments of Mortgage claiming that Chase was "successor in interest" and that the transfer occurred "by operation of law," would be incorrect. The FDIC was "successor in interest" to Washington Mutual Bank. Chase's purchase of the bank from the FDIC was for Washington Mutual Bank only and it occurred by a Purchase & Assumption Agreement and not "by operation of law" from the receivership.

As a result of the takeover, Washington Mutual shareholders lost all their equity.

JPMorgan Chase raised $10 billion in a stock sale to cover writedowns and losses after taking on deposits and branches of Washington Mutual. Through the acquisition, JPMorgan now owns the former accounts of Providian Financial, a credit card issuer WaMu acquired in 2005. The company announced plans to complete the rebranding of Washington Mutual branches to Chase by late 2009. Chief executive Alan H. Fishman received a $7.5 million sign-on bonus and cash severance of $11.6 million after being CEO for 17 days.

First Republic Bank

On May 1, 2023, in what was now the second largest bank failure behind JPMorgan's acquisition of Washington Mutual fifteen years earlier, the company acquired "the substantial majority of assets" and inherited the deposits of First Republic Bank. Under terms disclosed by JPMorgan Chase, it will make a $10.6 billion payment to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, return $25 billion in funds that other banks deposited with First Republic in March in a lifeline negotiated with the US Department of Treasury at that time, and will eliminate a $5 billion deposit it had made with First Republic. As a result of the takeover, First Republic Bank shareholders lost all their equity. The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund will be about $13 billion.

Recent history

2006

In 2006, JPMorgan Chase purchased Collegiate Funding Services, a portfolio company of private equity firm Lightyear Capital, for $663 million. CFS was used as the foundation for the Chase Student Loans, previously known as Chase Education Finance.

In April 2006, JPMorgan Chase acquired Bank of New York Mellon's retail and small business banking network. The acquisition gave Chase access to 339 additional branches in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In 2008, J.P. Morgan acquired the UK-based carbon offsetting company ClimateCare. JPMorgan Chase was the biggest bank at the end of 2008 as an individual bank (exclusive of its subsidiaries) during the 2008 financial crisis.

2008–2009

On October 28, 2008, $25 billion in funds were transferred from the U.S. Treasury Department to JPMorgan Chase, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). This was the fifth largest amount transferred under Section A of TARP to help troubled assets related to residential mortgages. It has been widely reported"Too Big to Fail Book"
. ''The New York Times''. November 12, 2009. that JPMorgan Chase was in much better financial shape than other banks and did not need TARP funds but accepted the funds because the government did not want to single out only the banks with capital issues. JPMorgan Chase stated in February 2009 that it would be using its capital-base monetary strength to acquire new businesses.

By February 2009, the U.S. government had not moved forward in enforcing TARP's intent of funding JPMorgan Chase with $25 billion. In the face of the government's lack of action, Jamie Dimon was quoted during the week of February 1, 2009, as saying:

JPMorgan Chase was arguably the healthiest of the nine largest U.S. banks and did not need to take TARP funds. To encourage smaller banks with troubled assets to accept this money, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson allegedly coerced the CEOs of the nine largest banks to accept TARP money under short notice.

In November 2009, J.P. Morgan announced it would acquire the balance of J.P. Morgan Cazenove, an advisory and underwriting joint venture established in 2004 with the Cazenove Group. Earlier in 2011, the company announced that by the use of field-programmable gate array-based supercomputers, the time taken to assess risk had been greatly reduced, from arriving at a conclusion within hours to what is now minutes. In 2013, J.P. Morgan acquired Bloomspot, a San Francisco-based startup. Shortly after the acquisition, the service was shut down and Bloomspot's talent was left unused.

2013

In 2013, after teaming up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GlaxoSmithKline and Children's Investment Fund, JPMorgan Chase, under Dimon launched a $94 million fund with a focus on "late-stage healthcare technology trials". The fund will "give money to final-stage drug, vaccine, and medical device studies that are otherwise stalled at companies because of their relatively high failure risk and low consumer demand. Examples of problems that could be addressed by the fund include malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and maternal and infant mortality", according to the Gates and JPMorgan Chase led-group.

2014

The 2014 JPMorgan Chase data breach, disclosed in September 2014, compromised the JPMorgan Chase accounts of over 83 million customers. The attack was discovered by the bank's security team in late July 2014, but not completely halted until the middle of August.

In October 2014, J.P. Morgan sold its commodities trader unit to Mercuria for $800 million, a quarter of the initial valuation of $3.5 billion, as the transaction excluded some oil and metal stockpiles and other assets.

2016

In March 2016, J.P. Morgan decided not to finance coal mines and coal power plants in wealthy countries. In October 2016, J.P.Morgan unveiled its permissioned blockchain called Quorum, based on Ethereum's GO programming language. In December 2016, 14 former executives of the Wendel investment company faced trial for tax fraud while JPMorgan Chase was to be pursued for complicity. Jean-Bernard Lafonta was convicted December 2015 for spreading false information and insider trading, and fined 1.5 million euros.

2017

In March 2017, Lawrence Obracanik, a former JPMorgan Chase & Co. employee, pleaded guilty to criminal charges that he stole more than $5 million from his employer to pay personal debts. In June 2017, Matt Zames, then-COO of the bank, decided to leave the firm. In December 2017, J.P. Morgan was sued by the Nigerian government for $875 million, which Nigeria alleges was transferred by J.P. Morgan to a corrupt former minister. Nigeria accused J.P. Morgan of being "grossly negligent".

2019

In February 2019, J.P. Morgan announced the launch of JPM Coin, a digital token that will be used to settle transactions between clients of its wholesale payments business. It would be the first cryptocurrency issued by a United States bank.

2021

On April 19, 2021, JP Morgan pledged $5billion towards the European Super League. a controversial breakaway group of football clubs seeking to create a monopolistic structure where the founding members would be guaranteed entry to the competition in perpetuity. They funded the failed attempt to create the league, which, if successful, would have ended the meritocratic European pyramid soccer system. J.P. Morgan's role in the creation of the Super League was instrumental; the investment bank was reported to have worked on it for several years. After a strong backlash, the owners/management of the teams that proposed creating the league pulled out of it. After the attempt to end the European football hierarchy failed, J.P. Morgan apologized for its role in the scheme. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said the company "kind of missed" that football supporters would respond negatively to the Super League. While the absence of promotion and relegation is a common sports model in the US, this is an antithesis to the European competition-based pyramid model and has led to widespread condemnation from Football federations internationally as well as at government level. However, even at the time, JPMorgan had been involved in European football for almost 20 years. In 2003, they advised the Glazer ownership of Manchester United. It also advised Rocco Commisso, the owner of Mediacom, to purchase ACF Fiorentina, and Dan Friedkin on his takeover of A.S. Roma. Moreover, It aided Inter Milan and A.S. Roma to sell bonds backed by future media revenue, and Spain's Real Madrid CF to raise funds to refurbish their Santiago Bernabeu Stadium.

In September 2021, JPMorgan Chase entered the UK retail banking market by launching an app-based current account under the Chase brand Chase UK. This is the company's first retail banking operation outside of the United States. In 2021, the company made more than over 30 acquisitions including OpenInvest and Nutmeg. In March 2022, JPMorgan Chase announced that would acquire Global Shares (now is J.P. Morgan Workplace solutions), a cloud-based provider of equity management software. In November 2021, JPMorgan Chase acquired restaurant recommendation website and owner of Zagat, The Infatuation.

In June 2021, JPMorgan Chase invested in Brazilian digital bank C6, acquiring 40% of the company. The amount of investment was not disclosed, but 6 months before the deal C6 was valued at 2.28 billion dollars.

2022

In 2022, JPMorgan Chase was ranked 24 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest U.S. corporations by total revenue. In March 2022, JPMorgan Chase announced to wind down its business in Russia in compliance with regulatory and licensing requirements.

On May 20, 2022, JPMorgan Chase used blockchain for collateral settlements, the latest Wall Street experimentation with the technology in the trading of traditional financial assets.

In September 2022, the company announced it was acquiring California-based Renovite Technologies to expand its payments processing business amid heavy competition from fintech firms like Stripe and Adyen. This comes on top of previous, similar moves of buying a 49% stake in fintech Viva Wallet and a majority sake in Volkswagen's payments business, among many other acquisitions in other areas of finance.

In November 2022, JPMorgan Chase sent COO Daniel Pinto to the Global Financial Leaders' Investment Summit in Hong Kong. The attendance of US financial executives drew heavy criticism from some US lawmakers, who had previously urged the US financial executives to cancel their attendance to the summit.

2023

In May 2023, ''CNBC'' reported JPMorgan Chase was developing a new tool for investment advisers using artificial intelligence called IndexGPT. Via trademark filing, this would rely on a "disruptive form of artificial intelligence" and cloud computing software to select investments for customers. This move was a sign the bank intended to launch a product in the near term, given the requirements around filing, and it came amid a flurry of development around ChatGPT and this technology from financial institutions. This came amid a period of job cuts, including for technology roles, even as the company emphasize its commitment to AI and created a model to detect potential changes in Federal Reserve policy.

JP increased its stake in Brazilian digital bank C6 to 46% in 2023: the bank has increased the number of customers from 8 million to 25 million since 2021 and its loan portfolio from R$9.5 billion (about $2 billion) to R$40 billion ($8.2 billion).

2025

In February 2025, Matt Sable and Melissa Smith were appointed as co-heads of commercial banking by JPMorgan Chase after a leadership reshuffle. They will oversee the service to over 70,000 clients across North America and report to John Simmons and Filippo Gori. Both have decades of experience under their belt, with Sable spearheading financial institutions and Smith specializing in innovation economy and middle market banking.

In February 2025, JPMorgan Chase has hired Jonathan Slaughter from Goldman Sachs to join its business services unit within the investment bank. Slaughter, who has served Goldman since 2021, will be now focusing on bolstering the expansion of JPMorgan's business services in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, based in London. He will report to the global head of business services, Dana Weinstein.

In March 2025, Charlie Javice, founder of the college financial aid startup ”Frank”, was convicted on all counts of fraud related to JPMorgan Chase’s $175 million acquisition of her company. Alongside Frank’s chief growth officer Olivier Amar, she was found guilty of securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and conspiracy. The fraud centered on Javice and Amar falsely representing Frank’s user base to JPMorgan. Prosecutors revealed that the company claimed to have 4.25 million users, when in reality, it had only about 300,000 to deceive the bank. Amar had purchased fake customer lists from third parties to create the illusion of a much larger client base. JPMorgan only realized the fraud when it attempted to contact Frank’s customers and received very few responses than expected. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, has since called the Frank acquisition a “huge mistake,” although the bank has remained silent in this regard. However, Javice’s sentencing is scheduled for August 26, while Amar will be sentenced on July 23.

Lawsuits and legal settlements by years

2001

Chase paid out over $2 billion in fines and legal settlements for their role in financing Enron Corporation with aiding and abetting Enron Corp.'s securities fraud

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