Opinion of bank mergers

[Bojack Horseman]

For the next eight days, I'm a customer of FirstMerit Bank, which is being merged into Huntington effective February 21. The whole thing has been a royal pain in the ass, as it involves getting a new debit card, account number, and routing number.

Before there was FirstMerit in my hometown, there was Citizens Bank, headquartered in downtown Flint, Michigan. Citizens was absorbed by FirstMerit (headquartered in Akron, Ohio) in 2013, and just three years after that, it was announced that FirstMerit was being absorbed by Huntington. They changed the letters on the weather ball on the headquarters building in Flint from CB to FM for FirstMerit, and I can't help but wonder if they'll change it for Huntington as well.

It's a pain is what it is. It's a pain in the ass.

[Virginiá]

Industry consolidation run amuck these days usually starts me off with a sour opinion towards these things, so unless it can be reasonably justified, I'd default to HP.

[Goldwater]

I'm generally against monopolization.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

I doubt its even close to black and white. I (and likely the vast majority of this forum) don't know enough to talk about this, though knowing these things, it probably depends a lot on the individual case.