Bank One

Bank One, based in Chicago, Illinois, was the sixth-largest bank in the United States. It traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the stock symbol ONE. The company was acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase on July 1, 2004.

The bank traces its roots to First Bancgroup of Ohio, 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", though for a long time they resisted combining them into one bank. Eventually Banc One Corporation merged with Chicago-based First Chicago NBD Corporation to form Bank One Corporation, and headquarters moved from Columbus to Chicago. Adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors, and Jamie Dimon, a former key executive of Citigroup, was brought in to head the company.

2004 Merger controversy

On January 15, 2004, the company announced that it was being acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase in a $58 billion merger. This merger was announced a few months after the proposed merger of Bank of America and FleetBoston banks.

This awoke concerns about too much consolidation of the banking industry. Chicago critics worried about the headquarters move to New York City feared less local charitible giving, higher fees, and less small business lending.

Mega-bank critics contend that, for example in Texas, the fact that one in five dollars put into a bank would be held inside the combined JP Morgan Chase-Bank One creates a potentially dangerous situation for regulators, and can create an oligopoly.

The banks contend that they are not banks at all anymore since the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, but rather financial services companies, that the "1 in 5" figure does not include deposists at credit unions, and brokerages; that there are only around 350 branches of the combined company out of a total of 5100 different branches in the state, that deposit market share is a meaningless figure since more money is in non bank deposits such as mutual funds, and that their market share in Texas in financial services would be more along the order of 3 percent. Financial Services companies also contend that the industry is one of the most non consolidated, with the market leader only having a 5 percent financial services market share, compared to market leaders like Home Depot, Starbucks, Wal Mart, all with around 30 percent market shares.