Actually First Union acquired Wachovia and decided to use the Wachovia name. First Union's reputation suffered when it took over Core State in Philly and it wanted retain the good name of Wachovia. Citigroup's acquisition of Wachovia will not only impact Charlotte NC but it should

What is very important here is that the industry has significantly consolidated with this merger. If de-regulation is cause for concern, limiting competition should also be a major cause for concern.

I got my mergers and acquisitions mixed up for a minute (an easy thing to do these days?). :)

I have been a customer since it was Maryland National Bank, which was before it was First Union, etc.

sorry, I was distracted and didn't finish one sentence, that is; Winston-Salem (Wachovia's original home town) may also be significantly impacted. As part of the original merger of First Union and Wachovia, First Union promised a continuing presence in Winston-Salem NC area. North Carolina as a whole could see a significant hit.

Finally, it appears the agreement is for "banking operations". No mention of corporate investment banking or securities which is a significant part of the financial operations.

Until there is something in writing, it is hard to tell exactly what this means other than the industry further consolidated.
 

The choices are diminishing.  I hadn't planned on being a Citi customer.  But now I am.  

Your wad of money and the responsibility to protect it is one of the few assets actually worth buying (well, that and the buildings the frachises are in) so Citigroup will do a good job protecting it.  But yeah, I've been frantically calling around to make sure the large CD I bought in Wachovia about four months ago is going to survive--I'm still below the FDIC threshold but I'd really hate to lose my interest earning potential.

First American Bank( subsidiary of BCCI) was pressured to sell out with accusations of unsavory Arab ownership.  First American got swallowed up in First Union which got swallowed up in Wachovia.  With Citibank, which got bailed out by Arabls in 2007 (ref here), now holding Wachovia, we've come full circle.

I guess the old joke "how do you pronounce 'Wachovia'? If you're rich it's 'watch over ya' and if you're poor it's 'walk over ya'" will fade into history.

I got a strange call from Wachovia, asking me how I liked the service et al.
I asked the lady if Wachovia was ok with all the other banks melting down. She said Wachovia was in good shape.
I guess they lied to make me feel better.
Guess taking money out of banks now may be the best bet.

You're okay up to $100,000.  Anything over that is foolish at this time.  You can easily spread it among various banks by getting CDs from different banks.

Of course if you have $50 million, there's a service to do it for you.

I did a little of that on Friday, wish I'd done more. When you do, the question becomes: Put the money where?  Under the mattress?

Numerous bank runs are one of the last stages of the beginning of final mass meltdown, which leads to a Bank Holiday. A future step will be defaulting on the national debt, and issuing a new currency. I pray that we do not reach those stages, and, so far, it does not seem that we will.(?) It's worth recalling that the FDIC was invented during a similar situation in the 1930's, and the FDIC was also even then considered abormal interference with the operations of the market because it insulated little depositors from punishment for having been so stupid as to put their money in a failing bank (even though this was well before the invention of Friedmanism). How can free markets work with all this nanny government interference?

I do not believe that the currently-being-debated bailout legislation will solve our problems, however, just extend the agony a little longer. I also agree that we now have to be concerned about loss of competition as a consequence of all the bank consolidations going on. For some years it has been the accepted wisdom that the US would end up with, say, four or at most five big banks, period. Maybe that is what will happen to the world: Sumitomo, anyone?  

I noticed yesterday that BofA has a new commercial up--advertising FDIC-insured CDs.  It was profoundly interesting to me because it's just not the sort of thing that banks do.  The normal commercial you see from a bank is, "we give you money now, and you give us more money later."  Now we have one spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign that says, "you give us money now, we give you more money later."

It raised an uncomfortable question for me: is BofA (a) responding to market uncertainty by pushing a fixed-rate investment vehicle that's FDIC insured where people can put their money and feel safe? or (b) are they worried they might be overextended and are looking to raise a little capitol right now outside of Wall Street?

I think that Wachovia's demise is the result of its acquisition of Golden West a year or so ago.  At the time, Wachovia wanted to expand to the West Coast and it thought that the mortgage paper was safe because of the "hot" real estate market in California.  

It will be interesting to see how many financial companies opt for the bailout (and lose all value for shareholders) or opt for the insurance (which avoids the loss of stock value).  I suspect that the stronger banks will buy the insurance; and the weak ones will go for the sale of the mortgage paper to try to survive.  The CEO's of the strong banks will want to avoid losing their share $$$ and they certainly won't want to have their compensation cut.

I've been with the same bank as it changed from Arlington Trust to First American to First Union to Wachovia. I'm not a fan of CITIBANK for a number of reasons. If they don't maintain the level of service I have now with Wachovia, I'll go full circle back to an Arlington institution. I'll use Arlington Federal Credit Union (deposits insured by the National Credit Union Administration) -- open to all who live or work in Arlington and building a large new HQ!s on Columbia Pike at the Fairfax line.

I do all of my banking and money issues online and with debit cards, no credit cards. Now I am wondering if it is safer to move to the Henrico Credit Union or any other credit union. Are they safe in this crisis?