Costco Checks into the Banking Business

Published on:
12 September 2006 at 10:20 a.m. ET

Written by: Unknown Author –

http://www.insidearm.com/news/00006539-costco-checks-into-the-banking-business/

By Kristen Millares Bolt AND Bill Virgin, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Few topics get bankers as riled up as the prospect of Arkansas-based retailing giant Wal-Mart getting a charter, getting into their business and doing to them what it did to other discounters and grocery stores.

Maybe they ought to be paying attention to what another retailing giant is up to.

Quite quietly, Issaquah-based Costco Wholesale Corp. has amassed as extensive a line-up of business and consumer-banking services as offered by most traditional banks — car loans, mortgages, home-equity loans, money-market accounts and certificates of deposit, annuities, investments and small business loans and lines of credit.

For this complete story, please visit http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/252568_costco19.html.