JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational banking and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the largest bank in the United States, and the world's fifth largest bank by total assets, with total assets of US$2.6 trillion. It is a major provider of financial services, and according to Forbes magazine is the world's third largest public company based on a composite ranking. The hedge fund unit of JPMorgan Chase is the second largest hedge fund in the United States. The company was formed in 2000, when Chase Manhattan Corporation merged with J.P. Morgan & Co.
The J.P. Morgan brand, historically known as Morgan, is used by the investment banking, asset management, private banking, private wealth management, and treasury & securities 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 Canada, the bank's retail banking activities in the United States, and commercial banking. The corporate headquarters is located at 270 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The retail and commercial bank is headquartered in Chase Tower, Chicago Loop, Chicago, Illinois, U.S. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is considered to be a universal bank.
JPMorgan Chase is one of the Big Four banks of the United States, along with Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. According to Bloomberg, as of October 2011, JPMorgan Chase had surpassed Bank of America as the largest U.S. bank by assets.

History
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. Its original predecessor, the Bank of the Manhattan Company, was the second 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.

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 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 at 270 Park Avenue.

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 Manhattan 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 J. P. Morgan 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 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. 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.

BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas is a French multinational bank and financial services company with global headquarters in Paris. BNP Paribas is one of the largest banks in the world. Based on 2012 information, BNP Paribas was ranked as the third-largest bank in the world, as measured by total assets, by Bloomberg and Forbes. In 2010, It was the world's 18th largest corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list, the rankings are based on revenues, accounted for as the sum of gross interest income and gross non. It was formed through the merger of Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) and Paribas (see below for name origin) in 2000.
The firm is a universal bank split into three strategic business units: Retail Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking and Investment Solutions (which includes Asset Management, custodial banking, and real estate services). BNP Paribas's four domestic markets are France, Italy, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It also has significant retail operations in the United States, Poland, Turkey, Ukraine, and North Africa, as well as large-scale investment banking operations in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
BNP Paribas escaped the 2007–09 credit crisis relatively unscathed reporting a €3 billion net profit for the year of 2008, and €5.8 billion for 2009, both years boosted by profits from trading in its Corporate and Investment Banking division.

History

Name in brief
The Banque National de Paris S.A. (BNP) resulted from a merger of two French banks (BNCI and CNEP) in 1966.
The Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas S.A. (Bank of Paris and the Netherlands), or Paribas was formed from two investment banks based respectively in Paris and Amsterdam, in 1872. Les Pays-Bas ("The Low-Countries") is French for the Netherlands.
In May 2000, BNP and Paribas merged to form BNP Paribas, which is thus descended from four founding banking institutions.
BNP Paribas Sentenced for Conspiring to Violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act
On May 1, 2015, the United States Department of Justice reported as follows: "BNP Paribas S.A. (BNPP), a global financial institution headquartered in Paris, was sentenced today for conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) by processing billions of dollars of transactions through the U.S. financial system on behalf of Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to U.S. economic sanctions. BNPP was sentenced to a five-year term of probation, and ordered to forfeit $8,833,600,000 to the United States and to pay a $140,000,000 fine."

BNP (Banque Nationale de Paris)
Main articles: Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris and Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie
On 7 March 1848, the French Provisional Government founded the Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP) in response to the financial shock caused by the revolution of February 1848. The upheaval destroyed the old credit system, which was already struggling to provide sufficient capital to meet the demands of the railway boom and the resulting growth of industry. The CEP grew steadily in France and overseas, although in 1889 there was a crisis in which it was temporarily placed in receivership.
Separately, on 18 April 1932, the French government replaced Banque nationale de crédit (BNC), which failed as a result of the 1930s recession, with the new bank Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI). The former banks headquarter and staff were used to create BNCI with fresh capital of 100 million francs. The bank initially grew rapidly through absorbing a number of regional banks that got into financial trouble. After the Second World War, it continued to grow steadily. It grew its retail business in France and its commercial business overseas in the French colonial empire.
After the end of the Second World War, the French state decided to "put banks and credit to work for national reconstruction". René Pleven, then Minister of Finance, launched a massive reorganization of the banking industry. A law passed on 2 December 1945 and which went into effect on 1 January 1946 nationalized the four leading French retail banks: Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (BNCI), Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP), Crédit Lyonnais, and Société Générale.
In 1966, the French government decided to merge Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris with Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie to create one new bank called Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP).
The bank was re-privatised in 1993 under the leadership of Michel Pébereau as part of a second Chirac government's privatization policy.

Paribas (Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas)

Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (Paribas) was established on 27 January 1872, through the merger of Banque de Crédit et de Dépôt des Pays-Bas, which had been established in 1820 by Louis-Raphaël Bischoffsheim in Amsterdam, and Banque de Paris, which had been founded in 1869 by a group of Parisian bankers. It went on to develop a strong investment banking business both domestically in France and overseas.
During the period 1872 to 1913, it was involved in raising funds for the French and other governments as well as big businesses through a number of bond issues. It helped the French government raise funds during the First World War and raised further capital and expanded into investments into industrial companies during the Great Depression. It stagnated and lost assets during the Second World War.
After World War II, it missed the nationalisation of the other French banks due to its status as an investment bank and managed to take advantage of that by expanding its operations overseas. It also directs its activity towards businesses and participates in the development and restructuring of French industry, including names such as Groupe Bull and Thomson-CSF.
The bank was nationalized in 1982 by the government of Pierre Mauroy under François Mitterrand as part of a law that nationalized five major industrial companies, thirty-nine registered banks, and two financial companies, Suez and Paribas. It was re-privatized in January 1987 by the Chirac government.
In the 1990s, Paribas had an active policy of acquisitions and divestiture. This included selling the Ottoman Bank to Doğuş Holding, and setting up the joint venture lending company Cetelem in Germany. It sold Crédit du Nord to Société Générale and in 1998 it merged with Compagnie Bancaire, renaming the bank with the official name Compagnie Financière de Paribas.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. is a Japanese bank holding / financial services company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan.
It holds assets of around US$2.5 trillion (JPY 230 trillion) as of March 2013 and is one of the main companies of the Mitsubishi Group. It is Japan's largest financial group and the world's second largest bank holding company holding around US$1.8 trillion (JPY 148 trillion) in deposits as of March 2011. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is the second largest public company in Japan when measured by market capitalization.

Background

The company was formed on October 1, 2005 with the merger of Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group (MTFG), formerly Japan's second-largest banking conglomerate, and Osaka-based UFJ Holdings, which was Japan's fourth-largest banking group.
The core banking units of the group, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and UFJ Bank, were merged on January 1, 2006 to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. This integration was originally scheduled to take place on October 1, 2005, the same day that the parent companies were merged. However, pressure from Japan's Financial Services Agency, which wanted to ensure the smooth systems integration of the two banking giants, caused the merger of the banks to be postponed for three months. The trust banking and securities units of MTFG and UFJ were merged according to the original schedule on October 1, 2005.

History

The financial group dates back to 1880 as the Yokohama Specie Bank, later renamed to The Bank of Tokyo. Also in 1880, The Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. was founded by former samurai Yataro Iwasaki. In 1919, the Mitsubishi Bank financed the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, most of which is today Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In April 1996, The Mitsubishi Bank, Ltd. and The Bank of Tokyo, Ltd. merged.
In July 2004, Japan's fourth-largest financial group UFJ Holdings offered to merge with MTFG. The merger of the two bank holding companies was completed on October 1, 2005. UFJ was created from a merger with the Toyo Trust and Banking, a part of the Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota's chairman sat on the board of the UFJ which became one of the world's largest money losing corporations. UFJ was accused by the government of corruption and making bad loans to the yakuza crime syndicates. The UFJ is one of the largest shareholders of Toyota. The trust banking and securities units of the two groups were merged on the same day. The core banking units of MTFG and UFJ, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Ltd. and UFJ Bank, respectively, continued to operate separately until January 1, 2006, when they were merged to form The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd..

Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, Inc.
Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, Inc. was one of Japan's largest banks ranked by assets (an estimated US$1 trillion), second only to Mizuho Holdings. On October 1, 2005, MTFG completed the acquisition of UFJ Holdings, Japan's fourth largest banking group, to form the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), the world's largest bank ranked by assets with ¥190 trillion (approximately $1.7 trillion).
MTFG was widely considered financially the strongest of Japan's large banks, with non-performing loans down to 2.9% of assets.

UFJ Holdings, Inc.
UFJ Holdings, Inc. was the weakest among the three major banking groups in Japan. "UFJ" is an abbreviation of "United Financial of Japan", was formed from a merger of Sanwa Bank and Tokai Bank with the Toyo Trust & Banking Co. Ltd, a part of the Toyota Motor Corporation. At the time, it was one of the largest shareholders of Toyota. The Chairman of Toyota was a director on its board during the financial scandals and indictments of three UFJ executives. The banking crisis led to its merger, after being one of the world's greatest losing corporations, on October 1, 2005, with the Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group to form the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
Formed April 1, 2001, with the merger of Sanwa Bank, Tokai Bank, and Toyo Trust and Banking.
In July 2004, UFJ announced plans to merge with the Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group. The merger was completed on October 1, 2005, creating the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the world's second biggest bank by assets at $1.7 trillion, trailing behind Citigroup with $2.4 trillion in assets.
In June 2011, UFJ took a 99.9 percent stake in Lynas Corp, the Australian rare earths developer, after buying an additional 10%.

Bank of America

Bank of America (abbreviated as BofA) is an American multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It is the second largest bank holding company in the United States by assets. As of 2013, Bank of America is the twenty-first largest company in the United States by total revenue. In 2010, Forbes listed Bank of America as the third biggest company in the world.
This segment provides its products and services through operating 5,100 banking centers, 16,300 ATMs, call centers, and online and mobile banking platforms. Its Consumer Real Estate Services segment offers consumer real estate products comprising fixed and adjustable-rate first-lien mortgage loans for home purchase and refinancing needs, home equity lines of credit, and home equity loans.
The bank's 2008 acquisition of Merrill Lynch made Bank of America the world's largest wealth management corporation and a major player in the investment banking market. According to the Scorpio Partnership Global Private Banking Benchmark 2014 it had assets under management (AuM) of 1,866.6 (USD Bn) an increase of 12.5% on 2013.
The company held 12.2% of all bank deposits in the United States in August 2009, and is one of the Big Four banks in the United States, along with Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo its main competitors. Bank of America operates but doesn't necessarily maintain retail branches in all 50 states of the United States, the District of Columbia and more than 40 other countries. It has a retail banking footprint that serves approximately 50 million consumer and small business relationships at 5,151 banking centers and 16,259 automated teller machines (ATMs).

History

Bank of Italy
Main article: Bank of Italy (United States)
The history of Bank of America dates back to October 17, 1904 , when Amadeo Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in San Francisco. The Bank of Italy served the needs of many immigrants settling in the United States at that time, a service denied to them by the existing American banks who were typically discriminatory and often denied service to all but the wealthiest. Giannini was raised by his mother and stepfather Lorenzo Scatena, as his father was fatally shot over a pay dispute with an employee. When the 1906 San Francisco earthquake struck, Giannini was able to save all deposits out of the bank building and away from the fires. Because San Francisco's banks were in smoldering ruins and unable to open their vaults, Giannini was able to use the rescued funds to commence lending within a few days of the disaster. From a makeshift desk consisting of a few planks over two barrels, he lent money to those who wished to rebuild.
In 1922, Giannini established Bank of America and Italy in Italy by buying Banca dell'Italia Meridionale, the latter established in 1918.
In 1928, Giannini merged his bank with Bank of America, Los Angeles, headed by Orra E. Monnette and consolidated it with other bank holdings to create what would become the largest banking institution in the country. Bank of Italy was renamed on November 3, 1930, calling it Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association, which was the only such designated bank in the nation at that time. The resulting company was headed by Giannini and serving as co-Chairs.

Expansion in California
Branch banking was introduced by Giannini shortly after 1909 legislation in California that allowed for branch banking in the state. Its first branch outside San Francisco was established in 1909 in San Jose. By 1929, the bank had 453 banking offices in California with aggregate resources of over US$1.4 billion. There is a replica of the 1909 Bank of Italy branch bank in History Park in San Jose, and the 1925 Bank of Italy Building is an important downtown landmark. Giannini sought to build a national bank, expanding into most of the western states as well as into the insurance industry, under the aegis of his holding company, Transamerica Corporation. In 1953, regulators succeeded in forcing the separation of Transamerica Corporation and Bank of America under the Clayton Antitrust Act. The passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 prohibited banks from owning non-banking subsidiaries such as insurance companies. Bank of America and Transamerica were separated, with the latter company continuing in the insurance business. However, federal banking regulators prohibited Bank of America's interstate banking activity, and Bank of America's domestic banks outside California were forced into a separate company that eventually became First Interstate Bancorp, later acquired by Wells Fargo and Company in 1996. It was not until the 1980s with a change in federal banking legislation and regulation that Bank of America was again able to expand its domestic consumer banking activity outside California.
New technologies also allowed credit cards to be linked directly to individual bank accounts. In 1958, the bank introduced the BankAmericard, which changed its name to Visa in 1977. A consortium of other California banks introduced Master Charge (now MasterCard) to compete with BankAmericard.

Corporate

Before Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, the Global Corporate and Investment Banking (GCIB) business operated as Banc of America Securities LLC. The bank's investment banking activities operate under the Merrill Lynch subsidiary and provided mergers and acquisitions advisory, underwriting, capital markets, as well as sales & trading in fixed income and equities markets. Its strongest groups include Leveraged Finance, Syndicated Loans, and mortgage-backed securities. It also has one of the largest research teams on Wall Street. Bank of America Merrill Lynch is headquartered in New York City.

Crédit Agricole

Crédit Agricole, sometimes called the “Green Bank” because of its historical ties to farming, is a French network of cooperative and mutual banks comprising the 39 Crédit Agricole Regional Banks. In 1990, it became an international full-service banking group. It is listed through its holding company, Crédit Agricole S.A., on Euronext Paris’ first market and is part of the CAC 40 stock market index. In 2013, the Crédit Agricole Group reported revenues of €26.4 billion.

Corporate governance

Crédit Agricole has a three-tier structure, comprising the Local Banks, the Regional Banks (and their branches and equity investments) and Crédit Agricole S.A. (and its subsidiaries). The Local and Regional Banks are cooperative companies. Crédit Agricole S.A. is a joint-stock company. Crédit Agricole is one of the leading cooperative companies in the world.

Local Banks

The 2,509 Local Banks form the foundation of Crédit Agricole. They have 7.4 million stakeholders (December 2013), who are both clients and owners of the share capital (through ownership shares) of the Local Banks, in accordance with the cooperative governance principle.
The Local Banks hold the bulk of the capital of the Regional Banks. At the annual general meetings of the Local Banks, which attract around 500,000 participants every year, the stakeholders appoint over 32,000 volunteer directors.

Regional Banks

Crédit Agricole’s Regional Banks are cooperative entities and fully-fledged banks, offering a wide range of financial products and services to their 20 million clients (end-2008). They boast a network of some 7,200 branches and 12,000 ATMs, plus more than 7,000 in-store cash points, which provide Crédit Agricole customers with basic banking services. Some Regional Banks have merged to improve their financial strength and competitiveness, with the total number of Regional Banks falling from 94 to 39 between 1988 and 2008.
Preventing exclusion from banking services
To prevent customers affected by a personal event, such as a death or unemployment, from being excluded from banking services, 30 Regional Banks have set up Point Passerelle centres, which provide a friendly ear, mediation and support for clients looking for help to get out of a difficult situation. Caisse Régionale du Nord-Est first introduced the system in 1997.
Promoting employment for people with disabilities
Through an association set up to promote the employment of people with disabilities within Crédit Agricole (HECA), the Crédit Agricole Regional Banks devote resources to the recruitment, integration and continued employment of disabled workers. Measures include workstation modifications, transport facilities and training. Since a lack of training makes it harder for people with disabilities to get work, Crédit Agricole has set up work/study training programmes to enable people who have their high school diploma to receive post-secondary qualifications. The goal was to recruit more than 800 disabled persons between 2006 and end-2010, and by end-2009, more than 360 permanent contracts and 670 work/study contracts had been signed. Former Miss France runner-up Sophie Vouzelaud, who has been deaf from birth, is HECA’s official ambassador.
Promoting the cooperative model
The Regional Banks help to promote the cooperative model locally through a variety of initiatives, such as the Perspectives Mutualistes conference series (Pau in 2006, Angers in 2007, Reims in 200831, Orléans in 2009), and by issuing special bank cards for stakeholders.