Bank Of America/MBNA Leaving Ireland & UK

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Sunny

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Bank of America have just announced they are leaving their UK and Ireland credit card business. I have not seen details of what this means and whether they are selling the business or winding it down.

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said it will exit the international credit- card business by selling its approximately $8.6 billion card business in Canada to TD Bank Group and leaving the U.K. and Irish card markets.
“We have been transforming the company to deliver the franchise to our core customer groups, and building a fortress balance sheet behind that,” Chief Executive Officer Brian T.
Moynihan said today in a statement. “While the credit card remains a fundamental core product for our U.S. customers, an international consumer card business under another brand is not consistent with that strategy.”
Moynihan is focusing on retail-banking customers, commercial borrowers and investment banking, and getting rid of unrelated assets to raise capital. The Charlotte, North Carolina-based company, which took a $45 billion government bailout during the financial crisis, has struck deals to sell an insurance unit and mortgage-servicing rights. Bank of America sold its $200 million portfolio of small business card loans to Barclays Plc in April.
The TD Bank transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter and boost Tier 1 common and tangible common equity ratios, the company said
 
The full article on bloomberg says:

Bank of America is weighing its options regarding the U.K. and Ireland businesses it is exiting, said Jerry Dubrowski, a company spokesman, declining to comment on what those options are.
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Also it's interesting how much people have credit cards debs with MBNA in UK/Ireland:

Bank of America’s portfolios in the U.K. and Ireland have a combined $19 billion in credit-card loans and more than 4,000 employees, the company said in the statement.
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Now giving how MBNA are pushing their interest free option right now (letters, phone calls, online, e-mail) this is interesting and contradicting.

Well let's see what happens.
 
Now giving how MBNA are pushing their interest free option right now (letters, phone calls, online, e-mail) this is interesting and contradicting.
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Not really - just like the Canadian one, it'll be sold as a going concern and will take quite some time to go through - it just means business as usual in the mean time.
 
Which bank in their right mind would buy an Irish credit card company right now? Surely closure is more likely.
 
Yeah finding a buyer will be difficult. Especially one willing to keep 1000 jobs in Leitrim. Big blow for Ireland.
 
Sunny said:
Yeah finding a buyer will be difficult. Especially one willing to keep 1000 jobs in Leitrim. Big blow for Ireland.
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A big jobs blow but it's great that they are no longer going to be running a credit card business. They had dreadful policies towards their customers and so, on balance, this is good news for Irish and British consumers as a whole.

Someone else will offer credit cards to their customers. So the 1000 jobs will be filled by other people in other companies.

Brendan
 
Brendan Burgess said:
A big jobs blow but it's great that they are no longer going to be running a credit card business. They had dreadful policies towards their customers and so, on balance, this is good news for Irish and British consumers as a whole.

Someone else will offer credit cards to their customers. So the 1000 jobs will be filled by other people in other companies.

Brendan
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I’m sorry but I disagree. In all the years that I have been with MBNA (in both the US and Ireland) MBNA always has been an excellent provider for me with excellent balance transfer offers, great customer service and in emergency situations (where the card was stolen) they reacted fast and refunded me the money (sure some paperwork was involved).

Sure once or twice I found had problems with payments taking too long but since using mybills.ie this is no longer the case.

I don’t understand why people are always complaining about dreadful policies towards their customers.

If someone racks up a credit card debt without the ability to pay it back and then complains that s/he is aggressively pursued than I feel not even remotely sorry about that. That behaviour is costing me the genuine customer more money because they will adjust their fees/interest to cover some losses.

And giving the current market conditions in Ireland I’m not as sure as you are that they will find a buyer that will continue to run the business, it will possible rather go down the same way as gemoney with them stopping new lending and having a small operation to service the existing debt.

Giving the risks of the Irish lending market which international player do you think has enough money to spend on the MBMA job? Barclays won’t (they left years ago), Santander has a small operation but I don’t think they want to get MBNA’s problems and I don’t know if an Irish business is really happy to take it on board either.

So we have to see when MBNA is announcing more details, which they hopefully do soon.

As to the jobs, I’m sorry for those people.
 
They were dreadful to their customers, how many people did they drive to the brink of despair.. I often thought of the staff working in a place like that, they must have really hated their jobs when they had to hound customers in difficulty up to 5 or 6 times a day. There is a dreadful thread somewhere about them. I do hope the government will do all it can to find the staff alternative jobs.
 
I never had any problems with MBNA. I am so sure we should be such a rush to celebrate the exit of yet another credit provider from this Country whatever their faults. I had experience of rubbish customer service from Dell but that doesn't mean I was happy to see them close their plant in Limerick.

It will be extremely difficult for them to find a buyer for the business in Ireland. And the Irish banks will not be on the look out for more credit card customers (apart from the very best ones).
 
OK, maybe I didn't explain properly. I am sure they were fine when you paid on time which many people did.

But if you got into arrears, they rang up to 6 times a day. Repeat - 6 times a day. I have met the victims and it was terrible.

If someone racks up a credit card debt without the ability to pay it back and then complains that s/he is aggressively pursued than I feel not even remotely sorry about that.
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Well I do actually. That is why we have a code on mortgage arrears and a section in the consumer code on personal debt. Some people lost their jobs or their businesses since they took on the credit card debt. Some people had their credit limits raised without their appying for it.

People in arrears really suffered at the hands of MBNA and I am glad to see the back of them.
 
Here's some useful advice:
Get whatever company is hassling you by ringing you to remove your phone number from their database. They won't want to do this, but the following tactics should work:

Ask them politely to remove your phone number.
Then if they phone back either put it in writing or tell them they have the wrong number, and please could they update their database.

I too use MBNA and have no problems with them.
 
Sunny said:
Yeah finding a buyer will be difficult. Especially one willing to keep 1000 jobs in Leitrim. Big blow for Ireland.
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Would be interested to see what you base this assumption on. As far as I can tell from the press releases, they are selling the business because it doesn't fit their strategic portfolio and not because they are not making any money.
Believe or not, but there are still companies out there who make investments and try to earn money.
In contradiction to the "general believe", Ireland is still a country where you can earn money when you run a business. (Especially if you kept your business ouf of the property madness).
Having said that, I agree with the fact that job losses are likely as any buyer might look to streamline processes and make use of synergies where possible.
 
newirishman said:
Would be interested what you base this assumption on. As far as I can tell from the press releases, they are selling the business because it doesn't fit their strategic portfolio and not because they are not making any money.
Believe or not, but there are still companies out there who make investments and try to earn money.
In contradiction to the "general believe", Ireland is still a country where you can earn money when you run a business. (Especially if you kept your business ouf of the property madness).
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Not saying it doesn't make money but it is not hugely profitable. Did I read it makes something like €3.5m before tax. Asking a financial institution to take on a consumer finance company in a Country like Ireland at the moment is extremely difficult. Especially for that sort of risk/return. Bank Of America are doing it to clean up their balance sheet. Most financial institutions are looking to do the same by concentrating on core businesses and markets. Ireland is a core market for very few people.

Do MBNA do customer service for the UK here as well? That might be their saving grace. Their best hope would be a buyer willing to take the UK and Irish businesses together. Otherwise, I think you will find a buyer for the UK business emerging and the Irish business been run down like Halifax.
 
I have a substantial balance on my card but have always met my repayments so have never been hounded. However, if this was to be converted to a term loan I could be in trouble as I'm sure that my monthly repayment would be substantially higher. What input would I get re the interest repayment and the term of the loan I wonder. Or do they just write out and say you're new repayment is x amount every month for the next x months????

My hubby was offered 0% on balance transfers only last week and we were going to go with that and do the transfer to our joint account... I was then going to use the money to repay my balance and repay his at 0%.... We never got around to ringing them over the weekend. Wonder is there any point now???
 
Cornie said:
My hubby was offered 0% on balance transfers only last week and we were going to go with that and do the transfer to our joint account... I was then going to use the money to repay my balance and repay his at 0%.... We never got around to ringing them over the weekend. Wonder is there any point now???
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Still worth doing if it is on offer.
 
Sunny said:
Do MBNA do customer service for the UK here as well? That might be their saving grace. Their best hope would be a buyer willing to take the UK and Irish businesses together.
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I presume that the Irish operation which employs 1,000 people service a worldwide clientele?

Oddly enough, a lot of the 5 times a day calls come from India or people with Indian accents.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I presume that the Irish operation which employs 1,000 people service a worldwide clientele?

Oddly enough, a lot of the 5 times a day calls come from India or people with Indian accents.
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Carrick-on-Shannon with about 1000 people (loads of them on 3 month contracts) are dealing with both UK/Ireland for telemarketing, customer assistance, credit assurance, customer loyalty, quality and support functions.

Chester in the UK has another 4000 people with contact centre departments, credit card printing teams, insurance, fraud and risk and a wide variety of support functions again supporting UK/Ireland.

So if they wind up it's 5000 jobs gone, if they find a buyer it might be less.

I for one am going to miss MBNA if they go out of business in Ireland, to me they were always great.

Let's hope that despite a large amount of defaults they still had profit in 2010 so that a buyer might emerge.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
OK, maybe I didn't explain properly. I am sure they were fine when you paid on time which many people did.

But if you got into arrears, they rang up to 6 times a day. Repeat - 6 times a day. I have met the victims and it was terrible.



Well I do actually. That is why we have a code on mortgage arrears and a section in the consumer code on personal debt. Some people lost their jobs or their businesses since they took on the credit card debt. Some people had their credit limits raised without their appying for it.

People in arrears really suffered at the hands of MBNA and I am glad to see the back of them.
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Agree with Brendan 100% this company had no morales or ethical code when dealing with arrears, calling people on their mobile 10 times a day, when people got home from work they called their home phone up and until they closed at 9.00 at night, if they couldnt get in contact with on these numbers they hunted you down on a work number which you had never ever given them if you called them off a number other than the ones they had for you, they would use this number to call you back. There code of practice made peoples lives hell and even made some people sucidial read back through this site on old forums or google it. Yes people will loose their jobs, but Ireland now will be a far better place without MBNA and theit vicious tactics.
 
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