Bank of America Merger

If you haven’t heard by now, Bank of America is now one of the largest issuer of credit cards in the United States. This comes as a result of its recent merger with MBNA. Now, the bank has a whopping $61.5 billion – that’s right billion – dollars of outstanding debt owed to it by its cardholders.

If you have a bank account or carry a credit card, which you likely do since there are not that many people who don’t, you have probably been hit by a bank merger or two. I know my bank is currently changing from one name to another, with the promise that we won’t even notice a difference (which was followed shortly by a notification that the overdraft protection I had in place with the equity loan I have out will no longer stand with the new bank – so much for “not noticing a change”).

It is almost as though bank mergers have just become a routine part of life – and why not? There is big money out there to be made by a bank that is strong enough to take over others that are not quite so powerful. And, Bank of America is certainly one of these banks.

Founded in San Francisco in 1904, Bank of America was actually originally called Bank of Italy. This is because its founder was actually an immigrant from Italy. Several years later, the name was changed and then the bank merged with Nation’s Bank to form the first ever banking operation to run from coast to coast. The juggernaut that is Bank of America keeps pounding away, swooping up new banks as it goes.

Strangely enough, I don’t have one of their cards in my pocket, despite the fact that they are the largest issuer in the States. That just goes to prove that even the smaller guys are still going strong in this trillion dollar business.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 4:20 pm and is filed under Credit Card News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.