[2] With each acquisition, new member banks kept their name, employees, and management while obtaining new resources from the parent holding company.

This is very important when the bank holding company was expanding into primarily rural and extremely conservative markets.

With the change in federal and state banking laws in 1985, Banc One began to rapidly expand outside of Ohio.

Its first out-of-state acquisition was of Purdue National Bank in Lafayette, Indiana which occurred just after the new laws went into effect.

[18][19][20] The first major merger that had an effect on the management of the holding company occurred in 1986 with the acquisition of Indianapolis-based American Fletcher Corporation, a multi-bank holding company, with its lead bank, American Fletcher National Bank & Trust Company, which resulted in giving 20% of the voting stock in the new company to the former managers of American Fletcher and also had Frank E. McKinney, Jr., the head of American Fletcher, replaced John B. McCoy as president of Banc One Corp. and moved McCoy up to chairman of the combined organization.

The merger came about Marine was trying to resist an unwanted acquisition attempt by Marshall & Ilsley that was initiated in June 1987 which would have resulted in massive firings.

[43] Banc One entered the state of Texas in 1989 through the acquisition of a number of failed banks that were seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a result of the late 1980s banking crises in Texas that was caused by the defaulting of a large number of real estate and energy sector loans when energy prices dropped and large numbers of people lost their jobs as a result.

[44] Although Banc One could obtain failed banks at a discount that were subsidized by the Federal government, they could also be stuck with loans in which borrowers could later default on if the economic crises worsen.

The next acquisition that occurred in Texas was the purchase of the failed Bright Banc Savings a few months later from the Resolution Trust Corporation in 1990.

The following year, Banc One acquired 13 Houston-area offices of the failed Benjamin Franklin Savings from the RTC for $36 million.

Compared to other states, Illinois was very slow to allow statewide branching and multi-bank holding companies.

A few months later, Banc One acquired First Illinois with its 15 offices in suburban Chicago for $349 million in stock.

To remedy this problem, Banc One acquired Louisville-based Liberty National Bancorp with its 104 banking offices located throughout Kentucky and Southern Indiana in 1994 for $842 million in stock.

[67][68][69][70][71] At the time of the acquisition, Liberty National Bancorp was the largest bank holding company in Kentucky that was still headquartered in that state.

As a result of the merger, Bank One Lexington was placed under the supervision of the new Banc One Kentucky holding company.

[71] In the 1992, Banc One announces the pending acquisitions of two western-based holding bank holding companies, Denver-based Affiliated Bankshares of Colorado[72][73] and Phoenix-based Valley National Corporation,[74] that would give the company access to new markets in Colorado, Arizona, Utah, and California.

Since all of the new offices in California were located in remote Fresno and far away from the large metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and San Francisco, Banc One had little opportunity to make a significant move into California and was not able to compete efficiently against California-based banks such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

[82][83] Thirty months later, Banc One entered Tulsa by the acquisition of Liberty Bancorporation of Oklahoma City for $546 million in stock in 1997.

Banc One entered Louisiana by acquiring the assets of Premier Bancorp of Baton Rouge, the third-largest bank holding company in the state with 150 offices, for $700 million in stock in 1996.

In 1997, Banc One decided to expand its national credit card business by acquiring the Dallas-based First USA for $7.9 billion in stock.

In attempt to save itself, MCorp sold MNet to Lomas & Nettleton Financial Corporation the following year for $300 million in cash and securities.

[114] At the time of the Merrill Lynch acquisition in 1989, Lomas Bankers–First USA was the 11th-largest issuer of credit cards in the nation.

As more bank credit card accounts became concentrated in a few large issuers during the 1990s, fewer banks had credit card accounts to sell, so large issuers switched to direct marketing to obtain more cardholders.

Those issuers started offering no annual fee cards with introductory interest rates that quickly increased after a set time.

This led to fierce competition among the remaining credit card issuers, especially in the fight to attract lucrative customers: those who maintain large monthly revolving balances.

[117] At this time, First USA was generating profits as high as nearly 25% on its owners' investment, which was phenomenal since a return of 1% on its assets is usually considered great for most other sectors of banking.

[121] Adverse financial results led to the departure of CEO John B. McCoy, whose father and grandfather had headed Banc One and predecessors.

In 1998, Bank One paid $66 million for the naming rights for 30 years to a newly constructed ballpark in Phoenix, which was built for the Major League Baseball expansion team Arizona Diamondbacks.

[122] The retractable roof stadium was called Bank One Ball Park, and was ultimately renamed '''Chase Field''' in 2005.