Waving Goodbye to WaMu
JPMorgan Chase said this week it has completed a $140 million conversion of its former Washington Mutual bank branches in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York and is steaming full speed ahead in other parts of the country. The latest announcement, which comes one month shy of the first anniversary of WaMu being seized by federal regulators and its assets sold to JPMorgan, means that the Washington Mutual name has all but disappeared from branches coast to coast, except for a few Western states.
So far this year, Chase has converted and rebranded 1,037 former Washington Mutual branches in 11 states. By the end of 2009, the bank estimates that about 1,800 former Washington Mutual branches across the country will be operating under the Chase brand and on the Chase computer system, giving Chase 5,100 branches in 23 states.
Chase says it has has shut down 387 Washington Mutual branches and only has four more left to close. Whereas Bank of America has recently said it plans to close branches to save cash, a Chase spokesman told DealBook that the firm remains committed to expanding its branch footprint at a rate of 100 to 150 new locations a year.
In a way, Chase had no choice but to be swift in integrating WaMu. Chase actually acquired Washington Mutual from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which took over the troubled thrift in September 2008 it was deemed at risk of failing because of loan losses.
In buying the bank from the F.D.I.C., Chase was allowed to break contracts and leases on WaMu branches within a 180-day window from the time of the deal. That meant that it had to move quickly in shedding unwanted locations. It also gave JPMorgan a greater incentive to shut down Washington Mutual branches as opposed to existing Chase branches. In fact, there was no legacy Chase branches closed at all during the integration, JPMorgan says.
Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo now control nearly one-third of all United States deposits. None of the banks can grow any larger through an acquisition, as they would violate a 1994 law that prohibits banks from acquiring other banks once they control 10 percent of the nation’s deposit base. That means these banks must rely on organic growth — such as grabbing customers from eachother.
JPMorgan, which has increased the number of employees in its branches, appears to be betting that people still want to come to those branches to do business, even with the rising popularity of Internet banking. Having more physical locations is more expensive, but the bank is hoping it will provide an edge as it competes for customers’ cash.
Bank of America has said it expects to shut down 10 percent of its 6,100-branch network. That would still leave it with more branches than Chase — as least for now.
dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/14/waving-goodbye-to-wamu/