So, I think anyone who lives in the Washington, DC area is aware by now that one of the area’s historic banks is in trouble. Big trouble. And, to get out of this trouble, this bank has agreed to be acquired by another bank.
Normally, bank mergers are a slow process. They take up to a year or more to get approval, the deal closes, and then slowly, signs start to change and accounts get converted. All in all, it could be up to two years before all traces of the acquired bank’s brand identity disappear. This is a necessary thing, because people are naturally skeptical when the place that keeps their hard earned cash suddenly changes names and ownership.
An example of a merger done mostly-right (so far anyway) from a technical standpoint is the Fleet-Bank of America merger. The Fleet brand continued to exist for well over a year after the deal was closed. Even now, the Fleet logo still appears on some company correspondence; the idea here is to make people associate the Fleet logo and Bank of America identity, so that there aren’t any huge surprises. And it’s only going to be this summer that old Fleet customers will finally have to convert their accounts to the Bank of America online banking system… most of whom will still be able to keept their old account numbers and old checks.
Well, if Bank of America is an example of a smooth merger, the PNC-Riggs purchase is an example of how NOT to make things go smoothly. Case in point:
Catherine Loper has been a Riggs Bank customer for 12 years, but as of yesterday she was in limbo.
Her ATM card expired April 30. She received a new PNC Bank card in the mail this week, but it won’t work until Riggs officially becomes PNC on May 13. When she called Riggs, the bank told her it couldn’t issue her a new card because the merger is so close. She didn’t know until yesterday that all of her account numbers will change next week because she hasn’t paid close attention to her mail in recent days.
The complete antithesis of a smooth merger: everything is going to change drastically, all in one weekend. Account numbers, old cards, and old checks will all be rendered invalid and replaced with new ones. Direct deposit for most former Riggs customers will likely go FUBAR unless the account holder is proactive and probably switches back to paper checks until this transition is ironed out. And of course, they picked a most ominous date to make this transition happen: Friday, the 13th of May, 2005.
This abrupt change is actually kind of surprising, given PNC’s track record for customer service. I’ve dealt with PNC and they’re my current bank of choice, and they are normally a very friendly, very customer-oriented bank despite their size.
Riggs bank customers can get info about the merger (closing this Friday) at this site. Current PNC customers won’t be affected, except for that fact that they can theoretically go to one of the former Riggs branches and conduct business there.