How Loyal are Wachovia and Washington Mutual Customers?
Written by Karen Marchione (contact - e-mail) -- November 11th, 2008 |
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Now that the dust has begun to settle on the acquisitions of Washington Mutual by Chase and Wachovia by Wells Fargo, the question now is whether WaMu and Wachovia customers will remain customers of their current bank or transfer their assets to another bank. Some WaMu and Wachovia customers may perceive transferring their assets to another bank as a perceived flight to safety to banks not as entwined in the current economic upheaval.
We first looked at loyalty rates among top banks to get a better understanding of whether certain online banking customers are prone to shop the competition or stick with their current bank when shopping for a similar financial product. Below, you can see that 51% of WaMu online banking customers in market* for a checking account considered opening a checking account online at WaMu. Likewise, 46% of Wachovia’s customers considered opening a checking account online at Wachovia. According to our data, both WaMu and Wachovia have above average loyalty rates with the average among this competitive set being 33%. Bank of America ranks the highest among this competitive set with a 53% loyalty rate.
*In market is defined as online bankers that visit shopping checking product pages
Second, we looked specifically at the online behavior of WaMu and Wachovia customers to understand which banks may be getting new business from WaMu and Wachovia customers in the near future. The competitor most likely to receive business from both WaMu and Wachovia customers is Bank of America - 37% of WaMu online bankers and 45% of Wachovia online bankers researched Bank of America’s checking products online between January and June 2008.
It should be interesting to see how WaMu and Wachovia customers react in the coming months. But, in both cases, with almost half of their customers prone to shop on other competitors’ sites, there is a real opportunity for other banks, especially Bank of America, to capture additional market share.
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November 12th, 2008 at 7:33 am
I’m not sure thats such a good idea, considering BofA just assumed all of countrywide’s debt. Its going to take a heck of a lot of effort and cash for them to come out of that deal in one piece.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Loyalty is a 2 way street.
I hung with WaMu through their problems, but last week, I received notice my credit card rate will be raised by 10%!! Never over extended, never late, made triple payments…Well, obviously they don’t need or want my business. I closed the account, and I am in the process of moving all my cookies elsewhere.
November 12th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I have been with WaMu for 5 years after leaving Wells and their unilateral “change of terms” on my accounts, but now I have had the unexpected…I can not make use of my own money because a WaMu branch manager decided to put a “hold” on it. I have two checking and one savings accounts, and withdrew money from my 401k and deposited the check in one of my checking accounts. Long story short, three days and two branches later, I was told that the check cleared, but I COULD NOT ACCESS MY MONEY UNTIL NEXT WEEK because there were no such large amounts deposited in this account’s history and the manager decided to put a HOLD on it.
Next week…SEE YA WaMU!!
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