What Will Happen To Washington Mutual Checking and Savings Accounts?

How will Washington Mutual account holders be affected by the merger with JP Morgan Chase? What does the merger mean for Washington Mutual customers? What will happen to the money deposited in the Washington Mutual checking and savings accounts, as well as money market accounts and CD’s? Will we lose our accounts and deposits?

According to the media, Washington Mutual account holders have nothing to worry. The existing Washington Mutual checking and savings accounts, as well as high yield paying accounts such as money market accounts and certificates of deposit will operate as usual. Those funds are ensured by the FDIC. From the bank customer’s prospective, nothing will change. The accounts will operate just as they did before the Washington Mutual & JP Morgan Chase merger takeover, with the same account numbers, ATM cards, ATM locations and branch locations until JP Morgan Chase closes some of the redundant bank branch locations overlapping with the existing JP Morgan Chase branch locations.

At some point in the future it is expected that your Washington Mutual bank monthly statement will reflect JP Morgan Chase name and that a new ATM card will be issued to the account holders.

I was a little bit worried over the past couple of days not knowing how Washington Mutual takeover will affect my personal checking and savings accounts. When I went on Washington Mutual website earlier today to check my balances something didn’t seem right. I remember scheduling online credit card payments and a utility bill payment from my Washington Mutual checking account, but my online statement did not reflect that those payments were made. However, when I checked my utility bill online it reflected a payment. Same with two credit cards. The credit card account were not with Washington Mutual, and both reflected payment as received and processed.

Working in the IT in the banking before I remember when the bank I was working for had two takeovers, some strange things happened to account holders. In fact, while we were in the process of switching accounts to the new bank overnight, a couple of confused bank customers who went to an ATM to get a withdrawal knocked on the door when they saw the light inside. One customer reported he had more money in the account according to the ATM statement and the other reported that the money was missing. The problem straightened itself out once the transfer of the account information was completed. So at this point I am not worried about that. Clearly the payments to my credit cards went through which is a good thing, but Washington Mutual statement not reflecting debit may just be due to the accounts presently being switched over to JP Morgan Chase. In my opinions it is too soon to switch the accounts over, but if JP Morgan Chase was able to get their IT Department on top of it this fast, that just means that things are under control.

If you have an account with Washington Mutual, go online on Washington Mutual website and check your balance. Don’t freak out if the account shows a different amount than what you expected. These things are natural when date is being transferred from one financial institution to another and in my experience working in IT for a large bank in the past, it takes less than a day to fix things up and get them back to normal.

Look Up More Information: Washington Mutual JP Morgan Chase Wall Street Journal Wells Fargo Wachovia Citigroup Federal Deposit Insurance Corp Bankrate.com ATM FDIC