Bummer

[prog]

I just learned that Bank of America bought MBNA in 2005; it took a while for the change to work its way down to the customer-interface level. (I acquired an MBNA credit card last year, apparently just before the purchase happened.)

My first thought was "there goes a big chunk of Maine's GDP" and lo according to this page I was right. BoA hurriedly set about shutting down most-perhaps-all of MBNA's Maine call centers, shifting work to various locations in South America. Sucks.

OTOH they gave me a promotional 2% APR on the big rent-paying balance transfer I took out last month, so, um, yay.

Comments

How it happened...

[(Anonymous)]

On June 30, 2005 MBNA announced that it was being acquired by Bank of America for stock and cash totalling more than $35 billion. The deal was closed on January 1, 2006. The acquisition resulted in MBNA being re-named to Bank of America Card Services while still based in Delaware. For the first part of 2006, MBNA still issued credit cards under its own name associated with Mastercard, VISA, and American Express, but by the second half of 2006, all card products were re-branded as Bank of America.

It should be noted that in Canada and Europe the MBNA name is retained. MBNA Europe (http://www.mbna.co.uk) headquarters is in Chester, England. MBNA Canada's headquarters are located in Ottawa, Ontario. In 2007, the Canadian division was named one of Canada's Top 100 Employers.

Always nice to get a promotional APR rate :) although I agree re-location is never pretty.