Wallet Watch

In an earlier job of mine, I was in charge of collecting all the credit card terms and conditions from the banks with the largest credit card loan portfolios. But with so many institutions failing and consolidating in this Wall Street crisis, its been funny to see how their websites have changed to deal with this. Washington Mutual, which was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a deal brokered by the FDIC, now has a image on www.wamu.com saying “Welcome to JPMorgan Chase,” which links to a press release boasting the strengths of JPMorgan. I thought the same might be the case with Wachovia, where I recently closed a checking account, but www.wachovia.com pretty much looks the same except for a blurb saying “Wachovia announces bank subsidiary divestitures to Citigroup” with a similar link to a press release.

Altogether, the banks seem pretty reassuring that regular people’s assets are safe, which of course they are federally-insured by the FDIC for accounts up to $100,000.