Washington Mutual - Essay Example

The conditions are analyzed in the paper and some recommendations have been suggested to improve the performance of the company and thereby determine their accountability. Washington Mutual Inc. is a Seattle based consumer and small business banking company operating in the markets of the United States. It is a savings and loan holding company with two banking subsidiaries namely Washington Mutual Bank (WMB) and Washington Mutual Bank fsb (WMBfsb), as well as numerous non-bank subsidiaries. The Washington Mutual is one of the largest savings and loan associations in the United States.

The main business operations of the company include retail banking network of 2,257 stores in California, Florida, Texas, New York, Washington, Illinois, Oregon, New Jersey, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Connecticut; card services operating throughout the country with credit card lending business; the commercial operations conducting multi-family and commercial real estate lending business in selected markets and the home loans group, which engages in nationwide single-family residential real estate lending, servicing and capital markets activities (Mouawad, 2007).

It is the sole survivor as a major Seattle based bank after the overwhelming trend of merger in the country between 1980 and 1990 which ended the independence of Rainier Bank, Seafirst Bank and Peoples National Bank among others. The Washington Mutual has taken up aggressive business strategies to expand its business. It went on to acquire a huge number of financial and banking institutions since 1930 and rapidly increased its assets to become a giant in banking and finance sector. It showed great performance in customer service since its foundation as a savior of the economy of Seattle after the great fire destruction.

It pioneered facilities like cash machine networks and telephone banking for customer satisfaction. The home loan sector of the