Your FDIC at work:
JPMorgan Chase acquired the banking operations of Washington Mutual Bank in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. All depositors are fully protected and there will be no cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund.
“For all depositors and other customers of Washington Mutual Bank, this is simply a combination of two banks,” said FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair. “For bank customers, it will be a seamless transition. There will be no interruption in services and bank customers should expect business as usual come Friday morning.”
JPMorgan Chase acquired the assets, assumed the qualified financial contracts and made a payment of $1.9 billion. Claims by equity, subordinated and senior debt holders were not acquired.
“WaMu’s balance sheet and the payment paid by JPMorgan Chase allowed a transaction in which neither the uninsured depositors nor the insurance fund absorbed any losses,” Bair said.
Washington Mutual Bank also has a subsidiary, Washington Mutual FSB, Park City, Utah. They have combined assets of $307 billion and total deposits of $188 billion.
Thursday evening, Washington Mutual was closed by the Office of Thrift Supervision and the FDIC named receiver. WaMu customers with questions should call their normal banking representative, service center, 1-800-788-7000 or visit www.WaMU.com. The FDIC’s consumer hotline is 1-877-ASK-FDIC (1-877-275-3342) or visit www.fdic.gov.
Did anyone out there know that HSBC stands for Hong Kong Savings Bank? I had NO IDEA until I went to my bank the other day and we were all talking about bank issues. I said that China was going to “own” us someday and the teller said that HSBC is Hong Kong Savings Bank. Hmmmmm…..just some info for everyone to digest for the day.
Number 1
HSBC stands for Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corp. While they are big in China, they are actually British. They were founded by the Brits in Hong Kong.
The real tragedy of this story is that both shareholders and bondholders are likely to be wiped out in this mess, according to todays Wall Street Journal(front page, lead story, paragraph three). For stockholders this is nothing new, but it is unprecedented for bondholders. This should send chills up everyones spines.
Washington continues to play politics, while Rome burns. There seems to be no confidence in the leadership ability of anyone in Washington, and yet, politics as usual continues to dominate the landscape. When will we, the taxpayers and seeming peons, who get taken along for the ride, begin to assert our self interests into the machinations of this greedy, self interested political system. At all levels of govt., the me, me philosophy of I want more, and my side is right while the other guys are morons continues to fester like three day old fish.
While we watch our 401K’s dwindle, our credit dry up, our house prices fall, our health care costs spiral out of control, and the price of everything go up, I am reminded that there have been times in history, that the citizens of many countries got fed up, and threw the bums out. It’s time for us to wake up, America, and assert our collective opinions to those whom you have given the public trust, and try to change this out of control quagmire for the better. I say this with no political agenda in mind, as I find myself unable to affiliate with either political party on any level.
WaMu, as others, overvalued properties just to write loans such as Home Equity Lines of Credit. Now these homeowners who were told their property was worth x dollars are troubled with properties they cannot sell due to this overvaluing. What happens to these people and their loans?
There is no doubt banks were greedy and wrote loans.
There are honest people out there who can pay their loans back, but who were duped into a false value of their property. Now – they are screwed!
when does it all end and do we expect some good news soon?