First National Bank of Chicago

First National Bank of Chicago
Founded	1863 (First Chicago name subsumed 1998)
Headquarters	Chicago, IL

First National Bank of Chicago (FNBC) was the city's premier bank for more than a century until it became First Chicago Bancorp, named for its parent in 1969. From there the bank merged into several more financial entities and names before eventually coming to rest at JPMorgan Chase & Co..

History

FNBC began in Chicago in 1863 with $250,000 but grew to the city's largest bank by 1876 and the country's second-largest by 1902. In 1938, the bank passed $1 billion in assets and had over $3 billion when it re-merged with parent First Chicago Corp. in 1969. That soon rose to $8 billion and then to $30 billion by the end of the 1970s.

First Chicago Brand Ends

First Chicago continued to grow into the 1990s when it acquired NBD of Detroit to become First Chicago NBD in 1995 and the nation's seventh-largest bank. It merged again three years later with Banc One Corp. to become Bank One, the nation's sixth-largest, and finally ending the First Chicago brand.

Bank One was itself swallowed by a much larger acquirer, JPMorgan Chase & Co., in 2004 for $58 billion. It also pushed JPMorgan Chase into second place behind Citigroup as the nation's largest banks by 2004 rankings. The top ranking has since been taken over by Bank of America.

Key People

Bank One CEO Jamie Dimon negotiated a jump to the corner office of JPMorgan Chase effective 2006, two years after the Bank One merger.