JPMorgan Chase
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking institution 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 2025. 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 development of an internal "Fortress Balance Sheet". The firm has had its global headquarters on 270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan since 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 worldwide.
JPMorgan Chase is the world's fifth-largest bank by total assets, with $ in assets as of 2025. The firm operates the largest investment bank in the world by revenue. It occupies the 11th spot on the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations by revenue. In 2025, JPMorgan Chase was ranked #1 in the Forbes Global 2000 ranking for the third consecutive year. 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. 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 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 by The Bank of the Manhattan Company, 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 in 1986, and Manufacturer's Hanover Trust Company in 1991. 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 investment banker, Jimmy Lee. At many points throughout this history, Chemical Bank was the largest bank, either in terms of assets or deposit market share, in the United States.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.
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. 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 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 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. An office of JPMorgan was opened in Taiwan in 1970, in Russia 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.