A History of Innovation Asia
“I should state that at all times the idea of doing first-class business and that in a first-class way has been before our minds.”
With these words on May 23, 1933, J.P. Morgan Jr. articulated a manifesto for our bank that still actively informs our strategy and practice today. It reinforces the ethical link between ends and
means – both what we do and how we do it. And it emphasizes that our business grows and prospers through long-term relationships based on trust and fair play.
J.P. Morgan opened the first Asia Pacific office in Sydney in 1872 and entrepreneurial innovation has driven the business ever since. A year after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake in Japan, J.P. Morgan underwrote US$150 million in disaster recovery bonds, the first dollar-denominated bonds issued by the Japanese government. In July 2007, J.P. Morgan became the first foreign institution to win the right to incorporate locally in Beijing.
Today J.P. Morgan continues to force the pace of change in the global financial services industry, with new products, new partnerships and new ways of doing ‘first-class business in a first-class way’.
