Originally published by the American Bankers Association, June 2004, also published by the Brandchannel and the Houston Business Journal. It was also published by several Asian websites and the Belgian Management and Marketing Association.
Wachovia Corp. has agreed to purchase competitor SouthTrust Corp. Hibernia Corporation acquired Coastal Bancorp, Inc. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is cleared to absorb Bank One Corp.
Whew! Banking is no longer boring.
The Chase merger will form the second-largest bank in the United States, with $1.12 trillion in assets. For Chase, this requires a significant investment in new signage, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, displays, imprints on about 51 million credit cards, etc. There will be employee issues and expenses as well.
And consider the thousands of other banks providing the same service: How will they compete? How can they compete? (more…)
