Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP today announced the filing of a series of nationwide class action lawsuits against Bank of America, Wachovia, U.S. Bank, JPMorgan Chase and Citibank in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida in Miami for abusive overdraft fees. READ MORE »

Wells Fargo this afternoon announced changes to its overdraft practices for Wells Fargo and Wachovia customers. In a press release, Wells Fargo said it will "eliminate overdraft fees for customers when they overdraw their accounts by $5 or less and will charge no more than four overdraft fees per day. In addition, Wells Fargo and Wachovia customers will be able to opt out of overdraft coverage, meaning customers can specify that they don’t want their transactions authorized into overdraft if funds aren’t available to cover the transaction." READ MORE »

In an article titled "What Wells Fargo plans to do on a bigger stage", James Temple writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about the Stagecoach's plans based on an interview with John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo. "Both companies have a deep respect for their employees, a passion about serving customers, are very involved in their communities and want to (provide) above-average and great returns for shareholders."

The Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced its "approval of the application and notice under sections 3 and 4 of the Bank Holding Company Act by Wells Fargo & Company, San Francisco, California, to acquire Wachovia Corporation and its subsidiary banks, Wachovia Bank, National Association, both of Charlotte, North Carolina, and Wachovia Bank Delaware, National Association, Wilmington, Delaware, and the nonbanking subsidiaries of Wachovia Corporation."

Citi announced this afternoon that "it had reached no agreement with Wells Fargo following several days of discussions about matters related to Wachovia. The dramatic differences in the parties' transaction structures and their views of the risks involved made it impossible to reach a mutually acceptable agreement." The New York Times DealBook reports that Citi will not try to block the Wachovia/Wells Fargo merger.

Separately, the Federal Reserve has announced that it will "immediately begin consideration of the filings submitted by Wells Fargo for approval to acquire Wachovia Corporation."

In a move that trumps the previously announced Citigroup acquisition of the banking operations of Wachovia, Wells Fargo and Wachovia this morning have announced "they have signed a definitive agreement for the merger of the two companies including all of Wachovia’s banking operations in a whole company transaction requiring no financial assistance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) or any other government agency." [Update: Wells Fargo has posted a presentation on the deal along with a webcast scheduled for 6:30 AM PDT this morning.] READ MORE »

The FDIC has announced that "Citigroup Inc. will acquire the banking operations of Wachovia Corporation; Charlotte, North Carolina, in a transaction facilitated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and concurred with by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve and the Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the President."

Wachovia Bank and Visa Inc. have announced that "they have signed a partnership agreement, renewing their long-standing relationship. Under terms of the deal, Wachovia will continue to offer Visa-branded credit and debit products to its customers as a major component of its consumer and small business payments business."

Wachovia has announced a new program, Way2Save, that is says will help American consumers by making it easy and automatic to save money. According to the bank, "Way2Save encourages customers to save by transferring $1 from their checking account into a new special savings account each time they make a Check Card purchase or an electronic payment."

Verizon Wireless and Qualcomm's Firethorn Holdings have announced that customers of Wachovia, SunTrust, FirstBank, and BancorpSouth, now have access to their accounts "in the palms of their hands."

AT&T has announced "the launch of a comprehensive, easy-to-use mobile banking platform that will enable consumers to view account balances and history, transfer funds and pay bills from their AT&T mobile handsets."

Wachovia has announced expansion of its treasury solutions for the healthcare industry with the addition of PatientPOS, calling it "an innovative solution proven to improve revenue cycle management for healthcare providers."

Ryan Kim writes for the San Francisco Chronicle's business section about mobile banking - "Wells Fargo is the latest bank to add mobile service, following Citibank, Bank of America, Wachovia and SunTrust, all of which started similar services in the past few months. Most of the country's top 20 banks are either offering the service or trying it out."

Wachovia has announced that, less than a year since its re-entry into the credit card business, it has reached one million credit card customers in its portfolio.

Binyamin Appelbaum reports for the Charlotte Observer about Wachovia's re-entry into the credit card business and how the bank is following a strategy similar to that of Wells Fargo - using the card business as part of the overall relationship strategy with the bank's customers. "Angering people with fees would be counterproductive, so Wachovia decided to forego some possible card revenues in the hopes of winning more of the customer's business," said Appelbaum.

RSA has announced that Wachovia has "deployed the RSA® Adaptive Authentication solution and joined the RSA eFraudNetwork community to protect its customers, their funds and personal information further when banking online, while incurring minimal impact to the online user-experience."

Wachovia has announced Wachovia Security Plus, "a new enhanced suite of security measures, to toughen Wachovia's already-strong security measures in the fight against online theft and fraud."

[Update: March 27, 2007 - AT&T and Firethorn announced Wachovia as one of their partner banks for mobile banking services.]

Wachovia has announced the availability of Wachovia Mobile - saying it is "the patent-pending first phase of Wachovia wireless retail banking." Wachovia Mobile gives customers the ability to access account information through Internet-enabled wireless devices like PDAs and cell phones - although initial availability of the service is limited to devices running Windows Mobile 5 with Pocket Internet Explorer.

Wachovia Treasury Services has announced it is adding the benefits of online hosting to its remote deposit capture (RDC) service.

Wachovia has announced a strategic partnership with GE Money - Corporate Payment Services to provide commercial and purchasing cards to its wholesale and treasury services customers. Under the terms of the partnership, Wachovia will sell, underwrite, manage and own the asset portfolio, which will feature MasterCard as its preferred brand. CPS will provide all back-office functions and a rich information- reporting and analytical toolkit that is essential to enhancing companies cash management and procurement capabilities.

Rick Rothacker of the Charlotte Observer interviews Wachovia's CEO Ken Thompson about how he balances his work and family life.

Binyamin Appelbaum reports for the Charlotte Observer on Wachovia's plans to return to the credit card business on Monday, replacing its earlier deal where MBNA issued cards on its behalf. Following the acquisition of MBNA by Bank of America earlier this year, Wachovia exercised its option to pull the card issuing away from MBNA, receiving a $100 MM breakup fee from MBNA in the process. Appelbaum reports that company executives say that Wachovia's "new Visa cards will feature relatively lenient rules and penalties, including absolution for one late payment every 12 months." "We're choosing to play the game differently," said Steve Boehm, Wachovia's head of credit cards.

Dan Fitzpatrick writes for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about "how Charlotte became a banking giant, outpacing Pittsburgh's banks." According to Fitzpatrick, "the Charlotte banks pressed ahead with dozens and dozens of acquisitions across the country, taking on new names with each deal and eventually turning this little-known textile and distribution hub into BankTown USA." Charlotte, of course, is home to Wachovia and Bank of America.

TSYS and Wachovia have announced a long term agreement for TSYS to provide core-processing and other related services in support of Wachovia's re-entry into the consumer credit-card line of business.

Five of the nation’s leading retail banks, Bank of America, BB&T Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo together with First Data have announced they have agreed to form Early Warning Services, LLC, to bring together the fraud prevention expertise of the owners with the intellectual property and assets of Primary Payment Systems (PPS) and IDLogix. PPS and IDLogix are subsidiaries of First Data specializing in fraud prevention technologies.

Wachovia and Golden West Financial, parent of World Savings Bank, have announced signing a definitive agreement to merge, "creating a leading retail banking and mortgage lending franchise in many of the nation's most attractive growth markets. This combination strengthens Wachovia's presence in California, Florida and Texas, and extends the banking franchise within reach of 55 percent of the U.S. population."

Andrew Ross Sorkin reports for the New York Times on reports that Wachovia is close to a deal to acquire Golden West Financial for about $26 billion in cash and stock. If true, such an acquisition would significantly increase Wachovia's presence in the California and west coast banking markets. The Wall St. Journal is also reporting the story.