NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Washington Mutual Inc was closed by the U.S. government in by far the largest failure of a U.S. bank, and its banking assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co for $1.9 billion.
Thursday's seizure and sale is the latest historic step in U.S. government attempts to clean up a banking industry littered with toxic mortgage debt. Negotiations over a $700 billion bailout of the entire financial system stalled in Washington on Thursday.
Washington Mutual, the largest U.S. savings and loan, has been one of the lenders hardest hit by the nation's housing bust and credit crisis, and had already suffered from soaring mortgage losses.
Washington Mutual was shut by the federal Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was named receiver. This followed $16.7 billion of deposit outflows at the Seattle-based thrift since Sept 15, the OTS said.
"With insufficient liquidity to meet its obligations, WaMu was in an unsafe and unsound condition to transact business," the OTS said.
Customers should expect business as usual on Friday, and all depositors are fully protected, the FDIC said.
They're still there. And now owned by what appears to be a more stable bank (JP Morgan & Chase). On the whole, probably a pretty good thing for the accountholders, really. Keep an eye out for account term changes, though; the high interest rates and freebies that WAMU was throwing around to get their hands on more liquid assets (a sign of instability, really) may get cut. Chase will give plenty of notice of any changes, though.
This is basically just a bank merger, happens all the time. Except the bank which was sold was forced into it by the FDIC. But in effect to us little people, just a plain ol' merger.
I also have accounts with WaMu. It did not actually fail in the stricktest sense. It was shut down by the OTC, a governmental agency because they felt that it was to unstable financially to continue doing business. So the OTC felt that WaMu was about to fail so they stepped in.
Then something that I think was good happened. Time will tell. Chase stepped up to the plate and bought out WaMu. Tommorrow, according to the article on the internet, you can go to any branch of the bank and transact business. I think Chase is probably big enough to ease any crisis for the moment. however, I am going to do a bit of research on Chase, before I make any more deposits.
If you are worried, I think you probably should calm yourself a bit and go see if you can make a withdrawl. I don't think it will be a problem.
Sold to JP Morgan for 1.9 billion anyway how many chances are you going to take with these banks just think for a second if all banks fail how would the government be able to pay back all that debt. I know the banks and government say that your money is FDIC up to 100,000 but just think if all the banks was to fail at once how would the government be able to pay everybody back what they have saved up in the bank. The Government is full of Shyt and you should not trust this LIE. DONT PUT THIS TYPE OF TRUST IN ANYONE Please have something stashed away ~GOD BLESS~
I have Wamu to, and nothing will happen to your accounts. Jp morgan bought thier assets. No worries
I posted a similar question about WaMu a little while ago...
and then i stumbled upon this...
Its has a lot of useful information
http://chase.com/welcomewamu/
If you have less than $100,000 you don't have anything to worry about. Its FDIC insured...
It waw sold to JP MORGAN CHASE. Sleep easy.
