They don’t have any branches in Minnesota either. US Bank is based here, and Wells Fargo also has a pretty heavy presence. I wonder if BofA has ever attempted to acquire US Bank to make up for their weak presence in the Upper Midwest; they certainly have a history of expanding by acquisition...
Wisconsin used to have rules against branch banking. When we first moved here, we banked at M & I. There were other M & I banks in town, but they were all separate entities. Sometime in the 1990s that prohibition fell by the wayside, and we have branch banking all over the place now. But we don’t have BOA.
BMO Harris seems to be the big cheese right now. They are out of Canada and have bought up all the independent, local banks. Both my personal bank and my business bank were bought by them about 5 years ago, and they have been a pain in the A** ever since. Now they’ve sold our business loan, and we are having trouble finding anybody to take it over. Everybody in town is furious with them. For one thing, they acquired so many banks that they have several banks on one block in some of the little towns. Naturally, they’ve closed most of them and fired all of the staff. I hate mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry.
The present-day Wells Fargo, I think used to be Norwest Bank, which I believe was headquartered in Minneapolis..??? I could be wrong.. memory is fuzzy in the old age...