Goodbye Capital One

Capital One Financial Corp., which bought Chevy Chase Bank earlier this year, is closing half a dozen branches of Chevy Chase Bank that were erected over the past decade in the Washington, D.C. area “to improve branch efficiency and performance, while also managing costs”.

Capital One merged Chevy Chase Bank into its charter July 30^th and plans to begin converting Chevy Chase to Capital One Bank in the second half of next year. Chevy Chase Bank locations in Bethesda, Hagerstown, Laurel and Rockville will close Dec. 19, 2009. Branches in Waldorf and Bethesda are scheduled to be closed Jan. 9, 2010.

According to deposit figures released by the FDIC on June 30th, Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America saw a surge in local deposits and overshot Wachovia Bank, which lost deposits, to become the area’s largest bank. Bank of America’s increase was driven by growth in its retail banking business. The figures are from the FDIC’s annual survey of each branch. McLean-based Chevy Chase Bank also gained ground with deposits, surpassing Atlanta-based Sun Trust Bank to reach third place. Chevy Chase’s figures don’t include deposits held at Capital One Bank, which merged Chevy Chase into its charter after numbers were collected.

Overall, community banks did a little bit better than large banks, taking about 1 percent of local market share from Bank of America, Wachovia, SunTrust, BB, Chevy Chase, Citibank, M&T, PNC, HSBC and TD Bank, which held 80.55 percent of local deposits, down from 81.49 percent a year ago.

 So why am I telling you this? Remember my scenario of last month, what the Capital One manager said about not being able to make any adjustments in my favor because of the economy and consequent defaults which gravely effected their bottom line? Well, their bottom line was huge in the black. Don’t take my word for it, get evidence of their earnings straight from Capital One! Goodbye Capital One, there’s something new in my wallet. Hello Community Banks!