JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City and incorporated in Delaware.[5] As of 2022, JPMorgan Chase is the largest bank in the United States, the world’s largest bank by market capitalization, and the fifth largest bank in the world in terms of total assets, with total assets of US$3.774 trillion.[6] Additionally, JPMorgan Chase is ranked 24th on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. It is considered a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board.
As a “Bulge Bracket” bank, it is a major provider of various investment banking and financial services. It is one of America’s Big Four banks, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo.[7] JPMorgan Chase is considered to be a universal bank and a custodian bank. The J.P. Morgan brand is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, wealth management, commercial banking, and treasury services divisions. Fiduciary activity within private banking and private wealth management is done under the aegis of JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.—the actual trustee.
The Chase brand is used for credit card services in the United States, and the bank’s retail banking activities in the United States and United Kingdom. Commercial Banking at JPMorgan Chase operates under both the Chase and J.P. Morgan brands. The bank’s corporate headquarters are currently located at 383 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, since the prior headquarters building directly across the street, 270 Park Avenue, was demolished and a larger replacement headquarters is being built on the same site.[8]
The current company was originally known as Chemical Bank, which acquired Chase Manhattan and assumed that company’s name. The present company was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.[8]
JPMorgan Chase, in its current structure, is the result of the combination of several large U.S. banking companies since 1996, including Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan & Co., Bank One, Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. Going back further, its predecessors include 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.[10]
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),[11] 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.[12]
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.[citation needed]
Led by David Rockefeller during the 1970s and 1980s, Chase Manhattan emerged as one of the largest and most prestigious banking concerns, 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.[13][14] 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.[15] In April 2000, UK-based Robert Fleming & Co. was purchased by the new Chase Manhattan Bank for $7.7 billion.[16]