KeyBank History: Founding, Timeline, and Milestones - Zippia (2024)

KeyCorp's history dates back to 1825 when New York Governor Dewitt Clinton signed a bill chartering the Commercial Bank of Albany, KeyCorp's direct ancestor.

KeyCorp began operations in 1832, as the Commercial Bank of Albany.

Society For Savings originated in 1849 as a mutual savings bank, founded by Samuel H. Mather.

After Society's funds quadrupled during the Civil War, it erected its own office building on the northeast corner of PUBLIC SQUARE in 1867.

In 1867, the modest but growing bank built Cleveland's first skyscraper, the 10-story Society for Savings Building on Public Square.

Also during this time, another bank that would eventually become part of KeyCorp opened--the Trust and Deposit Company of Onondaga in Syracuse, established in 1869.

Samuel H. Mather, the number of depositors steadily grew, and when Society opened a grander 10-story bank building at 127 Public Square in 1890, it had $19.3 million from over 41,000 depositors.

In 1919, the Trust and Deposit Company of Onondaga merged with First National Bank of Syracuse to become First Trust and Deposit.

That aspect is highlighted by the fact that when it celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1949, it still only had one office although it had over $200 million in deposits.

1956 it formed a subsidiary, Society Natl.

Bank in 1958 and the bank became a major subsidiary of the Society Corp., a newly formed bank holding company.

These two new banking concerns operated independently until 1971 when First Trust and Deposit was merged into National Commercial Bank and Trust Co. (now incorporated as First Commercial Banks Inc.) With that transaction, First Commercial had 89 offices in New York State.

Victor J. Riley, Jr., became president and chief executive officer (CEO) of the bank in 1973; he would continue to serve in this capacity for over 20 years, making him the longest tenured CEO of any of the top fifty banks in the country.

The name was changed to Key Bank Inc. in 1979, and the institution adopted its present name six years later.

Many leaders in the banking industry thought Riley was making a mistake when he started buying banks in Alaska and the Northwest in 1984.

In 1985, Riley bought two banks in Alaska and Alaska Pacific Bancorporation; he used Alaska's interstates banking laws to purchase a bank in Oregon, which became know as Key Bank of Oregon.

In 1986, it acquired four savings banks in the mid-Hudson Valley.

1986, making it the state's 3rd-largest bank holding company, with $8.7 billion in assets.

In 1987, Society CEO Gordon E. Heffern retired and was succeeded by Robert W. Gillespie, who, although just 42, was a major figure and part of the office of the chairman for more than 5 years.

In 1990, its efficiency ratio was about 66 percent, meaning that about sixty-six cents worth of every dollar in revenue was spent on overhead.

However, its footing became unsteady due to bad real estate loans, forcing the resignation of Cleveland Trust chairman Jerry V. Jarrett in 1990.

Society and Key held talks in 1990 at Gillespie's prompting, but Riley decided to stay the course of smaller, more lucrative acquisitions with obvious synergies.

Riley led the bank from its days as a strictly update New York bank to its position as the country's twenty-ninth largest financial institution in 1991 with &Dollar;23 billion in assets, up from &Dollar;2.4 billion ten years before.

By the end of 1992, its efficiency ratio had improved to 61.9 percent and was more in line with the efficiency ratios of comparable banks.

By the end of 1992, KeyCorp had its operations and its expenses under control, using a computer system to keep track of its coast-to-coast snowbelt holdings.

During 1992 the merger was completed, and the headquarters returned to the new Society Center (now KEY CENTER) at Public Square.

In one week in June 1993, the bench had become barren – Chief Banking Officer James Waterston, hired the year before, quit and publicly stated that he was frustrated with the pace of achieving his goal of running a large bank.

In early 1993, KeyCorp's assets were more than &Dollar;30 billion.

Yet, news reports swirled that a possible merger was in the works in the fall of 1993.

KeyBank is the primary subsidiary of KeyCorp, which was formed in 1994 through the merger of Society Corporation of Cleveland ("Society Bank") and KeyCorp ("Old KeyCorp") of Albany, New York.

On April 11, 1995, the city of Seattle sold the naming rights of the Seattle SuperSonics' home arena (previously called Seattle Center) to KeyCorp for $15.1 million, which renamed it as KeyArena.

Riley planned to retire as CEO at the end of 1995.

The Society name continued to be used in Society's former footprint for an additional two years before it was retired in June 1996 and the charters were merged.

In late 1998, Key bought Cleveland-based brokerage firm, McDonald & Co. for $653 million in stock.

Wyoming, Florida, and Long Island), and credit card operations to The Associates in 2000 (which was quickly thereafter acquired by Citigroup).

Gillespie resigned from the CEO position on February 1, 2001, and then as chairman at the annual meeting on May 17 during which he was replaced by Henry Meyer.

In late 1998, Key bought Cleveland-based brokerage firm, McDonald & Co. for $653 million in stock. As a result, Key began processing all subsequent securities transactions under its new broker-dealer name, "KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc", in April 2007.

McDonald was sold to the United States investment arm of UBS AG in 2007 for roughly $280 million.

In October 2008, Key received approximately $2.5 billion in investment from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The deal made Key one of the largest banks in Pittsburgh, and gave it branches that were once part of crosstown rival National City Corp., which Key tried to acquire from PNC Financial Services following the National City acquisition by PNC in 2008 before being outbid by First Niagara.

In March 2011, Key was one of the last major banks to pay back TARP funds.

In 2011, Beth Mooney became CEO of KeyBank, making her the first female head of a top-20 United States bank.

As of 2012, KeyBank held over 87 billion in assets, had over 15,000 employees, and over 1,000 branches.

By 2014, only about 225 non-branch employees were still based in Albany at the KeyCorp Tower.

On July 29, 2016, KeyCorp acquired First Niagara Bank for $4.1 billion in cash and stock.

In 2019, KeyBank announced it will be opening its first tellerless branch on May 13, 2019, in Boulder, Colorado.

Cleveland, OH