E-Trade
Broadens Services With Telebank Buy
E-Trade, a
Web-based stock-trading service, announced June 1, 1999 that it will
buy Telebank in a stock deal valued at about $1.8 billion. The deal
is expected to close in the fall, said Christos Catsakos, chairman of
E-Trade. This acquisition marks the first combination of an online
broker with an online bank. Telebank is the largest of the
"branchless banks," while E-Trade, with 1 million accounts, is one of
the largest online brokerages.
Telebank has more
than $2 billion in assets and is the first nationwide virtual bank to
join the ranks of the top 50 federally chartered savings banks,
according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. With the acquisition
of Arlington, VA based Telebank, E-Trade moves closer to becoming a
one-stop financial shop, offering consumers abroad range of online
transactions such as buying mutual funds and fixed-income securities,
as well trading equities and paying bills.
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