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Washington Mutual (or WaMu; ) is one of United States's leading consumer and small business banks. Despite its name, it is not a credit union or mutual company. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. As of June 30, 2005, it stands as the 6th largest bank in the United States by assets, valued at $350.7 billion. In March of 2006, Washington Mutual began moving into its new headquarters, WaMu Center, located in downtown Seattle. The company's original headquarters, Washington Mutual Tower, still stands about a block away from the new building on Second Avenue. Washington Mutual's principal activities are to provide financial services to consumers and small businesses such as retail banking, mortgage lending, consumer lending, business banking, business lending, insurance services, credit card services, commercial real estate mortgage and consumer investment services. Washington Mutual is the sole surviving major Seattle-based bank after the flurry of mergers in the 1980s and 1990s ended the independence of Rainier Bank, Seafirst Bank, and People's Bank, among others. Washington Mutual operates more than 2,600 retail banking, mortgage lending, commercial banking, and financial services offices, as of June 30, 2006.
History Washington Mutual was founded as the Washington National Building Loan and Investment Association on September 25, 1889 in an attempt to save Seattle's economy after a fire nearly destroyed the city. It made the first home mortgage loan on the West Coast four months later. Its name was changed to Washington Savings and Loan Association on June 25 1908. During World War I its assets would expand by 68%. By now called Washington Mutual Savings Bank, the company made its first acquisition on July 25, 1930, by purchasing Continental Mutual Savings Bank. Over the next fifty years it would be involved in pioneering cash machine networks and telephone banking. Its marketing slogan for much of its history was "The Friend of the Family." In 1983, Washington Mutual bought the brokerage firm Murphey Favre and demutualized. Today, it trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WM. By 1989, its assets had doubled. In March of 2006, Washington Mutual re-introduced its Free Checking product under the trademark WaMu Free Checking. It introduced benefits including: free checks for life, free ATM withdrawals (no Washington Mutual fees for non-proprietary ATMs), one free overdraft or insufficient funds refund per year, three cents back on debit card purchases, free custom email alerts, and free outgoing wire transfers (both international and domestic). Along with the new product, Washington Mutual changed its slogan from "More Human Interest" to "The WaMu Way" (WaMu is the official abbreviation for the company name). In August 2006, Washington Mutual began using the official abbreviation of WaMu in all but the legal viewpoint. The move by Washington Mutual is gaining a lot of media attention, bringing positive views from all over the United States, and through the banking industry. Occasio Branches Occasio is Latin for "favorable opportunity" or "special occasion" (which is also the root of the English word, occasion). It has an open, welcoming space with the look and feel of a contemporary retail store. Occasio branches are unique to Washington Mutual, as their design has taken a completely different direction from normal banks. Instead of teller windows and the traditional counter (which are normally roped off making customers form a line), tellers process customer transactions at individual stations. Washington Mutual is also unique in that it does not have tellers hand back any monies to customers, but instead gives customers a receipt with a PIN code. Customers walk over to an ATM like dispensing machine where they enter the one-time generated PIN code to retrieve their funds. This eliminates the possibility of theft by tellers or other customers from clients. In October, 2006, Jaime Quiroz Sanchez filed suit against Washington Mutual over a security issue in the Occasio layout. Because of the open design to encourage friendly customer service in a welcoming retail environment, he claims, anyone can see the money being handled by the teller. When a Washington Mutual branch refused to allow him to deposit $20,805 because of an expired driver's license, he was robbed of the money on the way out, as the open layout allowed people both inside and looking into the bank from outside to become aware that he was carrying a large amount of money (LA Times: Client Faults WaMu Layout in Robbery). Acquisitions Since the acquisition of Murphey Favre, Washington Mutual has made numerous acquisitions with the aim of expanding the corporation. By acquiring corporations such as PNC Mortgage, Fleet Mortgage, and Homeside Lending; Washington Mutual is now the 3rd largest mortgage lender in the United States. With the acquisition of Providian Financial Corporation in October 2005, WaMu has also become the nation's 9th largest credit card company. A list of Washington Mutual acquisitions since demutualization follows: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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