Chase blue covers last traces of WaMu

After eight months of makeovers, Washington Mutual branches in the Northwest are ready to be introduced by their new name – Chase.

Employees and customers will be ringing in the coming era with New Chase Day at branches in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah today.

Cindy Doty, market manager for Chase in Western Washington, says the day’s a celebration of employees – complete with cake, coffee and the culmination of all-things-WaMu fading into Chase blue.

Customers’ account numbers and debit cards will remain the same. The only change: the new Chase logo that will appear on merchandise. WaMu logos will be replaced on checks and credit cards when they are up for replacement.

Since purchasing WaMu’s assets in September after the bank’s collapse, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has spent $56 million adding employees and refurbishing the 187 branches in Washington state to make them match the Chase look.

Christine Braswell wasn’t sure what she’d find each morning during remodeling season when she walked into the Lakewood branch she manages.

“It was all after hours Monday through Friday. We would come in the next day and see the improvements,” she said, pointing out where silver plates replaced metal Ws that had branded desks in the lobby.

Blue signs, blue lobby chairs and a blue banner of paint hovering over the teller stations were among the gradual changes at her location.

Braswell was hoping a permit to mount the big Chase sign out front would arrive by New Chase Day but was preparing a backup banner to cover the WaMu lettering just in case.

“It’s no more WaMu on anything,” Doty said, gesturing to a sign behind her that still mentioned WaMu. “We are Chase.”

More drastic alterations were in order at 56 Western Washington branches that bore a purple and green “Occasio” design.

The look was left over from WaMu’s $1 billion branch-building binge that replaced the traditional teller line with round teller counters floating like islands in the lobby.

Citing practicality and uniformity, Chase has brought back the line.

The branch at 555 Trosper Road S.W. in Tumwater was the only location near Olympia to change from the Occasio design.

Other locations, such as the Lakewood branch, already had the more traditional teller counters.

“I definitely noticed it feels a little bit more corporate than WaMu did,” customer Jamie Newton, 24, said of the changed interior while using one of the new check-writing stands at the Lakewood branch last week. The old look was “a little bit more personable, not the people but just the way the interface worked.”

The individual teller counters at Occasio branches offered more privacy, Newton said, and she thought they looked nice.

“I think the line we were going for with the remodel is not more serious but more traditional,” said Darcy Donahoe-Wilmot, spokeswoman for Chase locations in the Northwest.

Despite all the investment to make customers “feel good” as they walk into their branches, Doty says security is still the most important element to banking.

New York-based JPMorgan Chase reported in April improved results for its first quarter revenues and profits.

Chase’s net income of $2.1 billion, or 40 cents per share, was down from the same quarter a year ago, but total net revenues climbed to $27 billion from $18 billion in the first quarter of 2008. The 2009 results included WaMu’s operations.

“The customers that I have talked to are just excited about the fact that they’re with a secure bank – a $2.2 trillion dollar financial services company. Their money’s secure,” said Doty, who would have worked for WaMu 26 years this summer.

Wearing blue eyeliner to match her Chase-blue scarf, Doty says she’s thrilled to be a Chase employee, too.

Though there were no layoffs or closures at branches taken over by Chase in Washington, 3,400 employees at WaMu’s Seattle headquarters lost their jobs because their services were duplicated within Chase.

Seven-year customer Ricardo Wolfs, 38, said he noticed the same faces are at the teller counters, but not much else.

“I just walk in and if there’s someone there, there’s someone there,” he said while writing his account number on a deposit slip, a task he said WaMu tellers used to do for him.

Washington Mutual’s transition to Chase has been a mixed bag for longtime customer Darrell O’Connor of Olympia.

O’Connor, who stopped to use the automated teller machine at Chase’s downtown Olympia branch Saturday, said he’s slowly adjusting to the way Chase does business – such as answering different questions on the ATM screen – to watching the downtown branch staff adjust to internal changes.

O’Connor first signed up with Washington Mutual in 1987 and had a mortgage through WaMu which is now with Chase, he said. WaMu always was good about withdrawing his mortgage payment on the first of every month, while Chase withdrew it early for June, he said. Still, at least he could leave a message for Chase’s mortgage department while WaMu’s mortgage department was “impossible to get ahold of,” he said. O’Connor said he plans to stay with Chase because of his mortgage but will “see what happens” once the WaMu, Chase transition settles down.

Doty said mostly the employees have absorbed the changes so customers won’t have to.

Doty said she was impressed with the way Chase absorbed and transitioned WaMu into its fleet, which now boasts 5,000 branches in the United States.

“It’s one of the fastest conversions in banking today you’ll find,” she said. “Chase has done this many times and, let me tell you, they are good at it.”

The slow visual transition reflects the change in systems employees have been learning over the past eight months.

Tellers began wearing Chase blue button-down uniforms March 30, which was New Chase Day in California, while WaMu signs still promised customers “cash, deposits & free smiles” at Washington branches.

The nametag-style signs in WaMu windows that said, “Hello, I’m becoming Chase” in April now say “Hello, I’m ready to help you.”

Whitney Coleman: 253-597-8546

whitney.coleman@thenewstribune.com

Olympian business reporter Rolf Boone contributed to this report.