Britannica Money (2024)

JPMorgan Chase & Co., American banking and financial services company formed through the December 2000 merger of J.P. Morgan & Co. and The Chase Manhattan Corporation. It is headquartered in New York City.

The Morgan branch of the corporation traces its history to J.P. Morgan and Company, Inc. (established 1895), and Guaranty Trust Company of New York (1864), which merged in 1959. The bank was renamed Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. in 1969. In 1989 Morgan became a leading U.S. underwriter of corporate debt, and by the end of the 20th century it had become one of the world’s most-respected investment banking houses. See also J.P. Morgan; J.P. Morgan, Jr.

In the early 21st century the new firm combined Chase Manhattan’s experience in personal and small-business banking with J.P. Morgan’s background in investment banking, government securities, and commercial banking. Bank One of Chicago merged with JPMorgan Chase in 2004. Most of Bank One’s operations assumed the Chase brand name. In 2008 JPMorgan Chase suffered billions of dollars in losses during the subprime mortgage crisis, a severe contraction of liquidity in credit markets worldwide brought about by the steep devaluation of mortgage-backed securities. In late 2008 the U.S. government invested $25 billion in JPMorgan Chase under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, a law designed to prevent the crisis from causing further damage to the U.S. financial system (the money was repaid in June 2009). In September 2008 the federal government seized the bank holding company Washington Mutual, Inc., and sold its banking assets to JPMorgan Chase. In May 2012 JPMorgan Chase announced that an investment unit of the bank had lost some $2 billion through a complex series of trades in derivatives, including credit-default swaps (CDSs).