Bank One

I decided to do this report on Bank One for many different reasons. I use to work for Bank One until January of 2003 and I was there for two years as a customer service associate. Most of your large financial institutions don't use the name "teller" in their job descriptions anymore. I was a teller, but my job title was customer service associate. I decided for one reason to do Bank One because I felt since I worked their, I would be able to do a good job discussing them. I also felt this might even help me to understand more about the company. I worked there for two years and never once looked at the financial statements in the annual report very hard. This was also a good choice for me because I could still get access to the intranet and find any information that might help with my paper. I am going to discuss different aspects of the bank and how they might be different than other banks, the CEO James Dimon, Board of Directors, and how Bank One utilizes the Balance Scorecard.

I researched the topics for this paper from a few different sources. I used Bank One's internal intranet website that can only be accessed from within the bank branches or corporate offices. I also used the 2002 Annual Report that was delivered in the mail the same week I started working on this paper. There was also lots of good corporate information off of the public website at www.bankone.com.

Bank One was founded in 1868 in Columbus Ohio and was called Sessions and Co. at that time. Then in 1929 they merged with two other banks to form City National Bank & Trust. Then in 1935 John H. McCoy was named president of City National, he will be the first McCoy of three to run Bank One. In 1958 John G. McCoy replaces his father as president. In 1979 Bank One officially adopts the Bank One name. The early 1980's is when Bank One, came to the Akron area when it acquired Firestone Bank and in the early 1990's when it bought out Central Trust in the Canton area. In 1987, John B. McCoy would be the third consecutive McCoy to run Bank One as President or CEO; he follows his father and Grandfather.

In the 1980's and 1990's is when bank one started to begin its growth across the country. 1989 they entered Texas through an acquisition. In 1993 they entered Arizona with a large acquisition to become the largest bank in Arizona. In 1997, Bank One acquired First USA Bank NA for $7.3 Billion, which then took them to the tenth largest bank at that time. An even better deal came in 1998 when they purchased First Chicago for $29 Billion, which now made them the fourth largest Bank in the Country. By the end of 1999 things really began to unravel within the company. They started having major financial issues with First USA, which was their credit card company. After shareholders found out that they were told misstatements during these acquisitions they demanded for McCoy's resignation, so on December 22, 1999 John B. McCoy retired ending the 64 year reign of McCoy's. An interim CEO was appointed while they searched for a replacement, which was named in early April of 2000, James Dimon from Citigroup.

Bank One is now currently the sixth largest bank holding company, with assets of nearly $300 Billion. They are the nation's leader of retail banking serving 6.9 million households and nearly 500,000 small businesses. Bank One is able to serve these customers through its 14 states where retail banking centers are located. There are over 2,500 banking centers located within those 14 states of operation. Bank One is also ranked number three in the nation for commercial lending, which usually is not taken care of within the banking centers. Commercial lending is done at corporate level due to the more complexity of the accounts. Such large corporate customers are Kohl's, Sears, Boeing, Bridgestone Firestone, Goodyear, and Disney. Because many of there large commercial accounts do business world wide Bank One has offices located in 11 countries with over 23,000 offices across the world for commercial customers to do business in, such as Australia, England, China, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and Mexico.

Bank One offers many different types of services in their retail banking centers. We have all been in a banking center for one bank or another, but with the increasing online sites and automatic deposits from our employers there is not as much need to go into the bank as often. There are still people who have to go into the banking centers everyday just for something to do, most of those people are the older people who don't use ATM's or automatic deposits. Are you aware of all the services provided within those banking centers, most financial institutions offer the same products but the products can vary between institutions. Everyone knows the normal services that banks offer like checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposits (CD's), Loans or Mortgages, and the Safe Deposit Boxes. These are the most commonly known services that all banks offer. In the past five to ten years many institutions have been switching gears and offering many other services. The most common is their investment services; Bank One has an investment group called the One Group which is ranked within the top 10 for investments. They also offer Credit Cards, Tax Services, and Insurance Services.

Credit Card Services is now Bank One's credit card company, formally know as First USA. This acquisition in 1997 was the most complicated one that they faced. First USA was not the most financially sound company in the first place, and it caused problems for Bank One when they tried to merge it with their bank. It might have worked better if they tried fixing First USA's problems before they merged them instead of after they were merged together. Jamie Dimon had a large job ahead of himself when he joined Bank One in 2000 because of the complicated issues with First USA and the customer service issues. Within two years Jamie had turned First USA around and had it going in the same direction as Bank One, this was due to the large part of his Balanced Scorecard approach. The biggest thing that they announced in late June 2002 is that they have earned the Disney account. In March 2003 Credit Card Services of Bank One rolled out the new Disney rewards credit card, which is advertised on Bank One's homepage and every Disney website there is. The banking centers are even advertising them with large four foot stuffed Mickey Mouse's. The Disney brand is a great selling point for Bank One because of this I heard in the first month they had a remarkable number of cards applied for.

The Board of Directors of Bank One is made up of a large diverse group of individuals form the business community.