Washington Mutual (or WaMu; NYSE: WM) is a financial services company based in Seattle, Washington. Despite its name, it is not a credit union or mutual company. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

Its headquarters are in the Washington Mutual Tower in downtown Seattle (the second tallest building in the city). As of March 2006, tenants from Washington Mutual began moving into the new Wamu center, Washington Mutual's new headquarters on Third Ave, about a block away from its current headquarters. As of June 30, 2005, it stands as the 6th largest bank in the United States by assets, valued at $343.1 billion.

Washington Mutual's principal activities are to provide financial services to consumers and businesses such as retail banking, mortgage lending, consumer lending, business banking, business lending, insurance services, credit card services, and consumer investment services.

Washington Mutual is the sole surviving major Seattle-based bank after the flurry of mergers in the 1980s and 1990s ended the independence of Rainier Bank, Seafirst Bank, and Peoples Bank, among others.

Washington Mutual operates 2,541 retail banking, mortgage lending, commercial banking, and financial services offices, as of December 31, 2005.

History

Washington Mutual was founded as the Washington National Building Loan and Investment Association on September 25, 1889 in an attempt to save Seattle's economy after a fire nearly destroyed the city. It made the first home mortgage loan on the West Coast four months later. Its name was changed to Washington Savings and Loan Association on June 25, 1908. During World War I its assets would expand by 68%.

By now called Washington Mutual Savings Bank, the company made its first acquisition on July 25, 1930, by purchasing Continental Mutual Savings Bank. Over the next fifty years it would be involved in pioneering cash machine networks and telephone banking.

Its marketing slogan for much of its history was "The Friend of the Family."

In 1983, Washington Mutual bought the brokerage firm Murphey Favre and demutualized. Today, it trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol WM. By 1989, its assets had doubled.

In March, 2006, Washington Mutual re-introduced its Free Checking product under the trademark WaMu Free Checking. It introduced benefits including: free checks for life, free ATM withdrawals (no Washington Mutual fees for non-proprietary ATMs), one free overdraft or insufficient funds refund per year, three cents back on debit card purchases, free custom email alerts, and free outgoing wire transfers (both international and domestic). Along with the new product, Washington Mutual changed its slogan from "More Human Interest" to "The WaMu Way" (WaMu is the official abbreviation for the company name).