JPMorgan Chase

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (stylized as JPMorganChase) is an American multinational financial services firm 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 2023. 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 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 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 $3.9 trillion as of 2023. 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.
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.
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:
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.
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).
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
On April 19, 2021, JP Morgan pledged $5 billion 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. 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.
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.
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).
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.
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, which collapsed amid a financial scandal in 2001. In 2003, Chase paid $160 million in fines and penalties to settle claims by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Manhattan district attorney's office. In 2005, Chase paid $2.2 billion to settle a lawsuit filed by investors in Enron.
In December 2002, Chase paid fines totaling $80 million, with the amount split between the states and the federal government. The fines were part of a settlement involving charges that ten banks, including Chase, deceived investors with biased research. The total settlement with the ten banks was $1.4 billion. The settlement required that the banks separate investment banking from research, and ban any allocation of IPO shares.
JPMorgan Chase, which helped underwrite $15.4 billion of WorldCom's bonds, agreed in March 2005 to pay $2 billion; that was 46 percent, or $630 million, more than it would have paid had it accepted an investor offer in May 2004 of $1.37 billion. J.P. Morgan was the last big lender to settle. Its payment is the second largest in the case, exceeded only by the $2.6 billion accord reached in 2004 by Citigroup. In March 2005, 16 of WorldCom's 17 former underwriters reached settlements with the investors. In 2005, JPMorgan Chase acknowledged that its two predecessor banks had received ownership of thousands of slaves as collateral prior to the Civil War. The company apologized for contributing to the "brutal and unjust institution" of slavery. The bank paid $5 million in reparations in the form of a scholarship program for Black students.
In 2008 and 2009, 14 lawsuits were filed against JPMorgan Chase in various district courts on behalf of Chase credit card holders claiming the bank violated the Truth in Lending Act, breached its contract with the consumers, and committed a breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The consumers contended that Chase, with little or no notice, increased minimum monthly payments from 2% to 5% on loan balances that were transferred to consumers' credit cards based on the promise of a fixed interest rate. In May 2011, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California certified the class action lawsuit. On July 23, 2012, Chase agreed to pay $100 million to settle the claim.
In November 2009, a week after Birmingham, Alabama Mayor Larry Langford was convicted for financial crimes related to bond swaps for Jefferson County, Alabama, JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to a $722 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to end a probe into the sales of derivatives that allegedly contributed to the near-bankruptcy of the county. JPMorgan had been chosen by the county commissioners to refinance the county's sewer debt, and the SEC had alleged that JPMorgan made undisclosed payments to close friends of the commissioners in exchange for the deal and made up for the costs by charging higher interest rates on the swaps.
In June 2010, J.P. Morgan Securities was fined a record £33.32 million ($49.12 million) by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) for failing to protect an average of £5.5 billion of clients' money from 2002 to 2009. FSA requires financial firms to keep clients' funds in separate accounts to protect the clients in case such a firm becomes insolvent. The firm had failed to properly segregate client funds from corporate funds following the merger of Chase and J.P. Morgan, resulting in a violation of FSA regulations but no losses to clients. The clients' funds would have been at risk had the firm become insolvent during this period. J.P. Morgan Securities reported the incident to the FSA, corrected the errors, and cooperated in the ensuing investigation, resulting in the fine being reduced 30% from an original amount of £47.6 million.
In January 2011, JPMorgan Chase admitted that it wrongly overcharged several thousand military families for their mortgages. The bank also admitted it improperly foreclosed on more than a dozen military families; both actions were in clear violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act which automatically lowers mortgage rates to 6 percent, and bars foreclosure proceedings of active-duty personnel. The overcharges may have never come to light were it not for legal action taken by Captain Jonathan Rowles. Both Captain Rowles and his spouse Julia accused Chase of violating the law and harassing the couple for nonpayment. An official stated that the situation was "grim" and Chase initially stated it would be refunding up to $2,000,000 to those who were overcharged, and that families improperly foreclosed on have gotten or will get their homes back. Chase has acknowledged that as many as 6,000 active duty military personnel were illegally overcharged, and more than 18 military families homes were wrongly foreclosed. In April, Chase agreed to pay a total of $27 million in compensation to settle the class-action suit. At the company's 2011 shareholders' meeting, Dimon apologized for the error and said the bank would forgive the loans of any active-duty personnel whose property had been foreclosed. In June 2011, lending chief Dave Lowman was forced out over the scandal.
On August 25, 2011, JPMorgan Chase agreed to settle fines with regard to violations of the sanctions under the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) regime. The U.S. Department of Treasury released the following civil penalties information under the heading: "JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. Settles Apparent Violations of Multiple Sanctions Programs":
On February 9, 2012, it was announced that the five largest mortgage servicers (Ally/GMAC, Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo) agreed to a historic settlement with the federal government and 49 states. The settlement, known as the National Mortgage Settlement (NMS), required the servicers to provide about $26 billion in relief to distressed homeowners and in direct payments to the states and federal government. This settlement amount makes the NMS the second largest civil settlement in U.S. history, only trailing the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. The five banks were also required to comply with 305 new mortgage servicing standards. Oklahoma held out and agreed to settle with the banks separately.
In 2012, JPMorgan Chase & Co was charged for misrepresenting and failing to disclose that the Chief Investment Office (CIO) had engaged in speculative trades that exposed JPMorgan to significant losses.
In July 2013, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved a stipulation and consent agreement under which JPMorgan Ventures Energy Corporation (JPMVEC), a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., agreed to pay $410 million in penalties and disgorgement to ratepayers for allegations of market manipulation stemming from the company's bidding activities in electricity markets in California and the Midwest from September 2010 through November 2012. JPMVEC agreed to pay a civil penalty of $285 million to the U.S. Treasury and to disgorge $125 million in unjust profits. JPMVEC admitted the facts set forth in the agreement, but neither admitted nor denied the violations. The case stemmed from multiple referrals to FERC from market monitors in 2011 and 2012 regarding JPMVEC's bidding practices. FERC investigators determined that JPMVEC engaged in 12 manipulative bidding strategies designed to make profits from power plants that were usually out of the money in the marketplace. In each of them, the company made bids designed to create artificial conditions that forced California and Midcontinent Independent System Operators (ISOs) to pay JPMVEC outside the market at premium rates. FERC investigators further determined that JPMVEC knew that the California ISO and Midcontinent ISO received no benefit from making inflated payments to the company, thereby defrauding the ISOs by obtaining payments for benefits that the company did not deliver beyond the routine provision of energy. FERC investigators also determined that JPMVEC's bids displaced other generation and altered day ahead and real-time prices from the prices that would have resulted had the company not submitted the bids. Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Congress directed FERC to detect, prevent, and appropriately sanction the gaming of energy markets. According to FERC, the Commission approved the settlement as in the public interest.
FERC's investigation of energy market manipulations led to a subsequent investigation into possible obstruction of justice by employees of JPMorgan Chase. Various newspapers reported in September 2013 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and US Attorney's Office in Manhattan were investigating whether employees withheld information or made false statements during the FERC investigation. The reported impetus for the investigation was a letter from Massachusetts Senators Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, in which they asked FERC why no action was taken against people who impeded the FERC investigation. At the time of the FBI investigation, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations was also looking into whether JPMorgan Chase employees impeded the FERC investigation. Reuters reported that JPMorgan Chase was facing over a dozen investigations at the time.
Bernie Madoff opened a business account at Chemical Bank in 1986 and maintained it until 2008, long after Chemical acquired Chase. In 2010, Irving Picard, the SIPC receiver appointed to liquidate Madoff's company, alleged that JPMorgan Chase failed to prevent Madoff from defrauding his customers. According to the suit, Chase "knew or should have known" that Madoff's wealth management business was a fraud. However, Chase did not report its concerns to regulators or law enforcement until October 2008, when it notified the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency. Picard argued that even after Morgan's investment bankers reported its concerns about Madoff's performance to UK officials, Chase's retail banking division did not put any restrictions on Madoff's banking activities until his arrest two months later. The receiver's suit against JPMorgan Chase was dismissed by the Court for failing to set forth any legally cognizable claim for damages. In the fall of 2013, JPMorgan Chase began talks with prosecutors and regulators regarding compliance with anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer banking regulations in connection with Madoff.
In August 2013, JPMorgan Chase announced that it was being investigated by the United States Department of Justice over its offerings of mortgage-backed securities leading up to the financial crisis of 2007–08. The company said that the Department of Justice had preliminarily concluded that the firm violated federal securities laws in offerings of subprime and Alt-A residential mortgage securities during the period 2005 to 2007. On November 19, 2013, the Justice Department announced that JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $13 billion to settle investigations into its business practices pertaining to mortgage-backed securities. Of that amount, $9 billion was penalties and fines, and the remaining $4 billion was consumer relief. This was the largest corporate settlement to date. Conduct at Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual prior to their 2008 acquisitions accounted for much of the alleged wrongdoing. The agreement did not settle criminal charges.
On January 7, 2014, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a total of $2.05 billion in fines and penalties to settle civil and criminal charges related to its role in the Madoff scandal. The government filed a two-count criminal information charging JPMorgan Chase with Bank Secrecy Act violations, but the charges would be dismissed within two years provided that JPMorgan Chase reforms its anti-money laundering procedures and cooperates with the government in its investigation. The bank agreed to forfeit $1.7 billion. The lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of shareholders against chief executive Jamie Dimon and other high-ranking JPMorgan Chase employees, used statements made by Bernie Madoff during interviews conducted while in prison in Butner, North Carolina claiming that JPMorgan Chase officials knew of the fraud. The lawsuit stated that "JPMorgan was uniquely positioned for 20 years to see Madoff's crimes and put a stop to them ... But faced with the prospect of shutting down Madoff's account and losing lucrative profits, JPMorgan – at its highest level – chose to turn a blind eye." JPMorgan Chase also agreed to pay a $350 million fine to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and settle the suit filed against it by Picard for $543 million.
In November 2016, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $264 million in fines to settle civil and criminal charges involving a systematic bribery scheme spanning 2006 to 2013 in which the bank secured business deals in Hong Kong by agreeing to hire hundreds of friends and relatives of Chinese government officials, resulting in more than $100 million in revenue for the bank.
In January 2017, the United States sued the company, accusing it of discriminating against "thousands" of black and Hispanic mortgage borrowers between 2006 and at least 2009.
On December 26, 2018, as part of an investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) into abusive practices related to American depositary receipts (ADRs), JPMorgan agreed to pay more than $135 million to settle charges of improper handling of "pre-released" ADRs without admitting or denying the SEC's findings. The sum consisted of $71 million in ill-gotten gains plus $14.4 million in prejudgment interest and an additional penalty of $49.7 million.
On May 14, 2020, Financial Times, citing a report which revealed how companies are treating employees, their supply chains and other stakeholders, during the COVID-19 pandemic, documented that J.P. Morgan Asset Management alongside Fidelity Investments and Vanguard have been accused of paying lip services to cover human rights violations. The UK based media also referenced that a few of the world's biggest fund houses took the action to lessen the impact of abuses, such as modern slavery, at the companies they invest in. J.P. Morgan, in responding to the report, said that it took "human rights violations very seriously" and "any company with alleged or proven violations of principles, including human rights abuses, is scrutinized and may result in either enhanced engagement or removal from a portfolio."
In September 2020, the company admitted that it manipulated precious metals futures and government bond markets in a span period of eight years. It settled with the United States Department of Justice, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for $920 million. J.P. Morgan will not face criminal charges, however, it will launch into a deferred prosecution agreement for three years.
On November 24, 2022, two women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sex trafficking and sexual abuse also sued JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank, accusing them of benefiting and closing their eyes to Epstein's sex trafficking operations. According to the lawsuits, banks knew that Epstein's accounts were used to finance sex trafficking crimes. In June 2023, after the allegations reached class-action status, the parties reached a settlement, with JPMorgan agreeing to pay $290 million.
In September 2023, JPMorgan agreed to a $75 million settlement with the United States Virgin Islands Department of Justice for its alleged facilitation and failure to notify law enforcement of Epstein's illegal activities.
On April 24, after Russian state-owned VTB Bank filed suit against JPMorgan to recoup assets frozen under international sanctions during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a Russian court ordered the seizure of JPMorgan funds totalling $439.5 million. JPMorgan launched a countersuit the following day, citing its inability to reclaim VTB’s stranded US funds. On April 26, a Russian court authorized the seizure of $13.34 million of assets held in Russia by a European subsidiary of JPMorgan and Commerzbank.
In July, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates became substantial holders in Telix Pharmaceuticals Ltd., acquiring a 5.04% voting power with 16,881,167 ordinary shares.
On October 31, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay $151 million to resolve five U.S. SEC enforcement cases, including allegations of misleading brokerage disclosures
On December 2, JPMorgan Chase was fined S$2.4 million by the Monetary Authority of Singapore after providing inaccurate and incomplete information to clients in 24 over-the-counter bond transactions by relationship managers, overcharging the clients and refusing to pay back the money difference from the pre-agreed spreads to the spreads given to clients.
Note: Financial data in billions of US dollars and employee data in thousands. For years 1998, 1999, and 2000 figures are combined for Chase Manhattan and J.P. Morgan & Co., for consistency, pre-dating their official merger in 2000. The data is sourced from the company's SEC Form 10-K from 1998 to 2020.
The corporate structure of JPMorgan Chase & Co. has changed throughout its history through various mergers and acquisitions as well as geographic expansion. In the United States, it owns and operates two key legal subsidiaries:
The modern JPMorgan Chase is broken up into the following three business segments:
The company, known previously as Chase Manhattan International Limited, was founded on September 18, 1968. In August 2008, the bank announced plans to construct a new European headquarters at Canary Wharf, London. These plans were subsequently suspended in December 2010, when the bank announced the purchase of a nearby existing office tower at 25 Bank Street for use as the European headquarters of its investment bank. 25 Bank Street had originally been designated as the European headquarters of Enron and was subsequently used as the headquarters of Lehman Brothers International. The regional office is in London with offices in Bournemouth, Glasgow, and Edinburgh for asset management, private banking, and investment banking.
The following is an illustration of the company's major mergers and acquisitions and historical predecessors, although this is not a comprehensive list:
JPMorgan Chase's PAC and its employees contributed $2.6 million to federal campaigns in 2014 and financed its lobbying team with $4.7 million in the first three-quarters of 2014. JPMorgan's giving has been focused on Republicans, with 62 percent of its donations going to GOP recipients in 2014. 78 House Democrats received campaign cash from JPMorgan's PAC in the 2014 cycle at an average of $5,200 and a total of 38 of the Democrats who voted for the 2015 spending bill took money from JPMorgan's PAC in 2014. JPMorgan Chase's PAC made maximum donations to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the leadership PACs of Steny Hoyer and Jim Himes in 2014.
JPMorgan has come under criticism for investing in new fossil fuels projects since the Paris climate change agreement. From 2016 to the first half of 2019 it provided $75 billion (£61 billion) to companies expanding in sectors such as fracking and Arctic oil and gas exploration. According to Rainforest Action Network its total fossil fuel financing was $64 billion in 2018, $69 billion in 2017 and $62 billion in 2016. From 2015, which is when the Paris Agreement was adopted, until 2021, JP Morgan Chase provided $317 billion in fossil fuel financing; 33% more than any other bank. On October 21, 2021, JP Morgan Chase joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, which supports "the global transition of the real economy to net-zero emissions."
An internal study, 'Risky business: the climate and macroeconomy', by bank economists David Mackie and Jessica Murray was leaked in early‑2020. The report, dated 14 January 2020, states that under our current unsustainable trajectory of climate change "we cannot rule out catastrophic outcomes where human life as we know it is threatened". JPMorgan subsequently distanced itself from the content of the study.
In May 2023, JPMorgan Chase announced that it would purchase $200 million in carbon credits representing 800,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) from multiple companies (including Climeworks and Charm Industrial) after announcing the previous month that it would join the Frontier CDR initiative formed by Alphabet Inc., McKinsey & Company, Meta Platforms, Shopify, and Stripe, Inc. under a $925 million advance market commitment to the CDR industry the previous year.
The old Chase Manhattan Bank's headquarters were at One Chase Manhattan Plaza (now 28 Liberty Street) in Lower Manhattan, the current temporary world headquarters for JPMorgan Chase & Co. are located at 383 Madison Avenue. In 2018, JPMorgan announced they would demolish the current headquarters building at 270 Park Avenue, which was also Union Carbide's former headquarters, to make way for a newer building at 270 Park Avenue that will be 681 feet (208 m) taller than the previous building. Demolition was completed in the spring of 2021, and the new building will be completed in 2025. The replacement 1,388 feet (423 m) and 70-story headquarters will contain 2,500,000 square feet (230,000 m), and will be able to fit 15,000 employees, whereas the current headquarters fits 6,000 employees in a space that has a capacity of 3,500. The new headquarters is part of the East Midtown rezoning plan. When construction is completed in 2025, the headquarters will then move back into the new building at 270 Park Avenue. As the new headquarters is replaced, the bulk of North American operations take place in five nearby buildings on or near Park Avenue in New York City: the former Bear Stearns Building at 383 Madison Avenue (just south of 270 Park Avenue), the former Chemical Bank Building at 277 Park Avenue just to the east, 237 Park Avenue, and 390 Madison Avenue. The bank entered into an agreement to purchase 250 Park Avenue in July 2024.
Approximately 11,050 employees are located in Columbus, Ohio, at the McCoy Center, the former Bank One Corporation offices. The building is the largest JPMorgan Chase & Co. facility in the world and the second-largest single-tenant office building in the United States behind The Pentagon. The bank moved some of its operations to the JPMorgan Chase Tower in Houston, when it purchased Texas Commerce Bank. The Global Corporate Bank's main headquarters are in London, with regional headquarters in Hong Kong, New York and São Paulo.
The Card Services division has its headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, with Card Services offices in Elgin, Illinois; Springfield, Missouri; San Antonio, Texas; Mumbai, India; and Cebu, Philippines. Additional large operation centers are located in Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California, Newark, Delaware; Orlando, Florida; Tampa, Florida; Jacksonville, Florida; Brandon, Florida; Indianapolis, Indiana; Louisville, Kentucky; Brooklyn, New York; Rochester, New York; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas, Texas; Fort Worth, Texas; Plano, Texas; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Operation centers in Canada are located in Burlington, Ontario; and Toronto, Ontario.
Additional offices and technology operations are located in Manila, Philippines; Cebu, Philippines; Mumbai, India; Bangalore, India; Hyderabad, India; New Delhi, India; Buenos Aires, Argentina; São Paulo; Mexico City, Mexico, and Jerusalem, Israel. In late 2017, JPMorgan Chase opened a new global operations center in Warsaw, Poland. The Asia Pacific headquarters for JPMorgan is located in Hong Kong at Chater House.
Operations centers in the United Kingdom are located in Bournemouth, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Liverpool, and Swindon. The London location also serves as the European headquarters.
The derivatives team at JPMorgan, led by Blythe Masters, was a pioneer in the invention of credit derivatives such as the credit default swap. The first CDS was created to allow Exxon to borrow money from JPMorgan while JPMorgan transferred the risk to the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. JPMorgan's team later created the 'BISTRO', a bundle of credit default swaps that was the progenitor of the Synthetic CDO. As of 2013 JPMorgan had the largest credit default swap and credit derivatives portfolio by total notional amount of any US bank.
In April 2012, hedge fund insiders became aware that the market in credit default swaps was possibly being affected by the activities of Bruno Iksil, a trader for JPMorgan Chase & Co., referred to as "the London whale" in reference to the huge positions he was taking. Heavy opposing bets to his positions are known to have been made by traders, including another branch of J.P. Morgan, who purchased the derivatives offered by J.P. Morgan in such high volume. Early reports were denied and minimized by the firm in an attempt to minimize exposure. Major losses, $2 billion, were reported by the firm in May 2012, in relation to these trades and updated to $4.4 billion on July 13, 2012. The disclosure, which resulted in headlines in the media, did not disclose the exact nature of the trading involved, which remained in progress as of June 28, 2012, and continued to produce losses which could total as much as $9 billion under worst-case scenarios. In the end, the trading produced actual losses of only $6 billion. The item traded, possibly related to CDX IG 9, an index based on the default risk of major U.S. corporations, has been described as a "derivative of a derivative". On the company's emergency conference call, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said the strategy was "flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed, and poorly monitored". The episode was investigated by the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the FBI.
On September 18, 2013, JPMorgan Chase agreed to pay a total of $920 million in fines and penalties to American and UK regulators for violations related to the trading loss and other incidents. The fine was part of a multiagency and multinational settlement with the Federal Reserve, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States and the Financial Conduct Authority in the UK. The company also admitted breaking American securities law. The fines amounted to the third biggest banking fine levied by US regulators, and the second-largest by UK authorities. As of September 19, 2013, two traders face criminal proceedings. It is also the first time in several years that a major American financial institution has publicly admitted breaking the securities laws.
A report by the SEC was critical of the level of oversight from senior management on traders, and the FCA said the incident demonstrated "flaws permeating all levels of the firm: from portfolio level right up to senior management." On the day of the fine, the BBC reported from the New York Stock Exchange that the fines "barely registered" with traders there, the news had been an expected development, and the company had prepared for the financial hit.
The collection was begun in 1959 by David Rockefeller, and comprises over 30,000 objects, of which over 6,000 are photographic-based, as of 2012 containing more than one hundred works by Middle Eastern and North African artists. The One Chase Manhattan Plaza building was the original location at the start of collection by the Chase Manhattan Bank, the current collection containing both this and also those works that the First National Bank of Chicago had acquired prior to assimilation into the JPMorgan Chase organization. L. K. Erf has been the director of acquisitions of works since 2004 for the bank, whose art program staff is completed by an additional three full-time members and one registrar. The advisory committee at the time of the Rockefeller initiation included A. H. Barr, and D. Miller, and also J. J. Sweeney, R. Hale, P. Rathbone and G. Bunshaft.
JPMorgan Chase is mainly owned by institutional investors, with over 70% of shares held. The 10 largest shareholder of the bank in December 2023 were:
Jamie Dimon is the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. The acquisition deal of Bank One in 2004, was designed in part to recruit Dimon to JPMorgan Chase. He became chief executive at the end of 2005. Dimon has been recognized for his leadership during the 2008 financial crisis. Under his leadership, JPMorgan Chase rescued two ailing banks during the crisis.
As of May 1, 2023: