Leadpile’s Blog

Many banks are following in the footsteps of Bank of America, by offering free services that will not only help consumers save money, but learn to manage and understand their finances. When Bank of America first rolled out their “Keep The Change” program, it was a huge hit. It not only helped consumers save money effortlessly, but it also brought new customers into the bank. Banks such as Citi Bank offered incentive programs such as a referral bonus, and TD Bank now lets consumers deposit checks from home just by scanning it.
It is great that banks are offering several incentives to their customers, but is that enough? Customers do not just want incentives, they want to know their finances. Banks are well aware that many customers are much more involved in their finances now then a few years ago. With interests rates and fees skyrocketing, it makes sense the people want to micro manage their accounts to avoid penalties. Many banks are also offering better customer services and are making sure the customer knows exactly what they are signing (for example, Bank of America came out with the one pager “Clarity Commitment” form). It is great that banks are doing everything that they can to keep their customers and not hide any information from them. Banks know that their customers are much more knowledgeable about their finance today and instead of trying to make more hidden terms, they are embracing it and accommodating to their needs. This is great news for the future of the customers and the trust they have with where their money is being help. Hopefully other financial institutions begin to follow this trend!

With today’s news about Wachovia Bank being purchased by Citigroup, this leaves pretty much 3-4 major banks out there now. For instance, there is Wells Fargo Bank, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, and Bank of America. According to Business Week, this could mean the cost of taking care of your money, or getting new loans could cost consumers more money. “The larger the bank is, theoretically the more power they have to set pricing and other policies,” said Nancy Atkinson, senior analyst at Aite Group, a financial services research firm. “I expect we’ll start to see free checking accounts start to disappear, and rates on overdrafts could go up. Savings rates could drop, Business Week says.” Also, things such as customer service and answering questions, could be a little hard to get taken care of with these new consolidation of banks. Therefore, those that are maybe wondering how this bank consolidation affected them… maybe soon will see.
Will all these changes cause industries such as payday loans to become more popular, because consumers getting loans with their banks won’t happen as easily? Time will tell how this will affect Leadpile Lead Exchange and the types of leads we are bringing in.

According to MSNBC today, the Bank of America acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corporation is official and should be completed by July. However, this scenario is all too familiar to this industry. Mega giant ACC Capital Holdings (parent company of Ameriquest Mortgage and Argent Mortgage) was acquired by Citigroup and then soon after, ALL the remaining Ameriquest Mortgages branches were shut down. However, Bank of America doesn’t seem to be hiding the fact that they are going to be cutting 7,500 jobs over the next two years, but they did not mention specifically where yet.
So what sort of affects will this have on people? There area a lot of people that are going to be out of work and a lot of customers that are potentially going to be seeing a different lenders name on their mortgage statement. Either way, there are a lot of people that have a really tough road ahead for them, but there are resources that could help.
As a lead company Leadpile will see some affect from this in different aspects. For instance, there still could be those consumers that are still looking to refinance their home, or other customers needing help with all that debt that will be piling up. We want those lenders out there that are still looking for FRESH leads of people wanting to refinance their home. We are the perfect marketplace for those lead buyers.

Leadpile is an exchange of the buyers and sellers of those lead types and many more. We welcome them all so we can try and help as many of these people affected by this situation as we can!