Well, the reasons I dropped Citibank are quite legit. Lots of errors, some serious, and real hostility to the customers. They acted in a dishonest way, and that's when I called it quits.
My needs are easy to summarize.
Branch location in South Fl and North Il. Provides notary and medallion. Safety deposit box. Decent online banking systems.
I'll wait till this stuff settles down, then reassess. I'm considering buying a safe and getting my notary and medallion from Fidelity - that makes it a lot easier. Then lots of banking options.
Michael
As a consumer, I'm happy with the prospect over the Wells-Wachovia merger, which hopefully will take place notwithstanding the rumblings of Citi over its exclusivity arrangement with Wachovia (can't figure out who purportedly signed this on behalf of the Wachovia Board, but it doesn't look like Robert Steele's signature).
I was once a customer of Citi, beginning when it used to be First National City Bank in NYC, and it provides horrible service on its retail banking side, which has been a dwindling base of its operations for a while. I'm not enamored with its brokerage side either, from its Smith Barney acquisition. In contrast, Wachovia, where I've had several depository and brokerage accounts, is very strong in these areas. (I also get a free safe deposit box from Wachovia.) I like the idea of having some of my banking and brokerage relationships in one strong financial institution and Wachovia used to fit that bill and right now the only one that fits that bill might be JP Chase Morgan.
For my personal accounts, a Citi-Wachovia Merger would have caused me to flee and migrate over to JP Chase Morgan, the next day. With Wells, this is one strong institution with excellent mortgage lending and servicing operations -- I have two mortgage loans with Wells and they are absolutely the finest I've seen for underwriting and servicing. They didn't let their standards go down in lending -- even with some modest exposure to subprime borrowers. Wells doesn't have brokerage operations and very small retail branch presence on the East Coast. Wells, with this merger, would join the ranks of Citi, JP Morgan, and Bank of America, in coast-to-coast retail banking.
And if the net operating losses of Wachovia can carry forward against Well's income over the next few years, shareholders in Wells should be flush with cash.