Washington Mutual (or WaMu; NYSE: WM) is the United States’ largest savings and loan association. [1] Despite its name, it is not a credit union, and ceased being a mutual company in 1983. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.In March 2006, Washington Mutual began moving into its new headquarters, WaMu Center, located in downtown Seattle. The company’s previous 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.Contents[hide]
1 HistoryHistory
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 on February 10, 1890. 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 August 2006, Washington Mutual began using the official abbreviation of WaMu in all but the legal viewpoint.[edit] Occasio BranchesWashington Mutual has a number of branches which it calls “Occasio Branches”. Occasio is Latin for “favorable opportunity” or “special occasion” (which is also the root of the English word, occasion). These branches are designed to provide a more open space than a traditional bank branch, and to have a look and feel similar to that of a contemporary retail store. Instead of teller windows at a counter with a roped-off queue for customers, tellers process customer transactions at individual stations. At these branches, the tellers ordinarily do not give cash directly to customers, but instead give customers a receipt with a PIN. Customers then walk over to an ATM-like money dispensing machine where they enter the one-time generated PIN to receive cash. At some Occasio branches, the money is dispensed directly from the teller station, instead of a central machine.
a list of Washington Mutual acquisitions since demutualization follows:
Commercial Capital Bancorp, California, 2006
Providian Financial Corporation, California, 2005
Bank United Corp., Texas, 2001
Long Beach Financial Corp., California, 1999Industrial Bank, California, 1998
United Western Financial Group, Inc., Utah, 1997
Keystone Holdings, Inc. (American Savings Bank), California, 1996
Utah Federal Savings Bank, 1996
Enterprise Bank, Washington, 1995
Olympus Bank FSB, Utah, 1995
Summit Savings Bank, Washington, 1994
Far West Federal Savings Bank, Oregon, 1994
Pacific First Bank, Ontario, 1993
Pioneer Savings Bank, Washington, 1993
Great Northwest Bank, Washington, 1992
Sound Savings & Loan Association, Washington, 1991
CrossLand Savings FSB, Utah, 1991
Vancouver Federal Savings Bank, Washington, 1991
Williamsburg Federal Savings Association, Utah, 1990
Frontier Federal Savings Association, Washington, 1990
Continental Mutual Savings, 1930
