Banking after WaMu

The latest domino to fall in the continuing and ever-surprising Wall Street subprime fubar, as I’m sure everyone has heard by now, is WaMu (née Washington Mutual).  As a customer of the bank—checking and ATM card only—I am saddened by this turn of events.  While its recent corporate (mis)direction, and ultimately the reason for its demise, had been an attempt to mimic the megabanks like Citigroup, Bank of America, and the like, WaMu’s original mission was that of a community bank serving the largest town in the newly-minted 42nd state.

That history is, to no small degree, the reason I chose to bank at WaMu when I moved here in 2001.  I saw it as an integral component of Seattle, as a valuable piece of the fabric of the place.  That its original 1889 name was “Washington National Building Loan and Investment Association” resonated with me, as though WaMu was something of a grown-up, real-life Bailey Building & Loan Association. 

What I didn’t know at the time was that its birth, like its death, took place on my birthday.

Although WaMu was already trying to remake itself as a nationwide conglomerate in 2001, its presence in Seattle and its place in the regional consciousness was still very much what it had always been.  I never had any complaints about my experience as a WaMu customer.  But WaMu has now been consumed by another of the giants.  Just 24 hours after the deed was done, the WaMu website already prominently displays a Welcome to JPMorgan Chase link.  For the moment, they say, nothing’s changing.  Same account number, same debit card, same checks.  But it won’t stay that way:

Soon

• You’ll be able to use over 9,300 Chase ATMs fee-free - jointly, that’s 14,000 ATMs for your banking convenience!

In the future

• You’ll begin to see the Chase name on your statements, online, and on your credit cards as they reissue.
• Your branch will be re-named Chase and you’ll be re-issued new debit cards with the Chase name. Until then, bank as you do today.
• As our systems merge, you’ll be able to use any of the Chase branches nationwide. This won’t take place this year, and we’ll let you know well in advance of any changes.

OK, I’m happy to see that they’ll send out warnings beforehand.  But I don’t think they’ll really have to be concerned about me, because I intend to move my checking account to another institution.  The only remaining question is where.

Given the choice, I’ll always prefer to go with a local, community-oriented organization rather than a national conglomerate.  In my previous home, I banked at the Bank of New Hampshire (which, alas, has since been swallowed up by something called TD Banknorth).  And before that was perhaps my favorite bank of all—Butler County PA’s locally-owned, independent Mars National Bank.  How could I resist an institution with a name like that?  Especially after seeing its motto ... Service Out of This World!

As banks merge and merge and merge, though, it’s getting harder to find an appropriate landing zone.  Now that WaMu is gone, the Seattle banking fraternity appears to consist solely of behemoths (B of A, Wells Fargo, Key Bank, U.S. Bank, and now JPMorgan Chase) and tiny shops.  There are several reasonably large banks in the environs, but they’re mostly in surrounding counties rather than King, and might have one office in the city.  The megabank group is out of the question, for reasons already mentioned.  But I want to have at least a modicum of available choices in surcharge-free ATMs, to have at least a few branches nearby where I can deposit paper checks ... that pretty much eliminates the other Seattle banks.  What’s a fella to do?

The solution will probably end up being a credit union.  I don’t really care about the infinitesimal interest they pay on some checking accounts, particularly since I generally don’t keep much money in my checking account.  As I begin researching them, however, I find that credit unions have developed regional, even national, networks.  If I’m reading the information correctly, in fact, with a credit union debit card one can withdraw no-surcharge cash from networked credit union ATMs nationwide, perhaps in Canada as well.

It used to be that you had to possess some attribute—a job, trade union membership, etc.—that qualified you to be a credit union member.  Those restrictions have largely disappeared.  Anyone living in Washington is eligible to join BECU (the B and E used to mean “Boeing Employees"), though WSECU still appears to require you to have some sort of association with a Washington city, county, state, higher education, or public school employee.  Then again, as a Harborview employee receiving paychecks from the University of Washington, I do qualify for WSECU.  Those are just two of the many credit unions in the area.

It’ll be a hassle to change all of my auto-pay setups to new routing numbers, but so it goes.  It looks like I’d have that problem even if I didn’t choose to change to a new bank.  After all, my bank has already chosen to change without me.

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