BankAmerica, NationsBank Acquire Meca

BankAmerica Corp. and NationsBank Corp. said last week that they had completed their acquisition of Meca Software Inc., a prominent maker of personal finance software.

The two banking companies announced plans in May to jointly buy Meca from H&R Block Corp. for about $35 million. The Fairfield, Conn.-based software concern sells Managing Your Money, home banking software that rivals Microsoft Corp.'s Money and Intuit Inc.'s market-leading Quicken.

Bank officials said that the acquisition would help the financial industry as a whole to better compete in the interactive financial services market as it rapidly heats up.

"We view this acquisition as reinforcing our central message: Financial institutions are best suited to provide the software through which customers access their accounts and buy additional products and services," said Paul Harrison, president and chief executive officer of Meca. "Meca is dedicated to helping financial institutions better serve their customers through improved electronic access."

The pair expect to enlist other banks to take a stake in Meca, and help boost Managing Your Money and any other ancillary financial products Meca might offer. Bank officials said they were fielding inquiries from other financial institutions interested in taking part, even before they officially announced the intended acquisition last month.

Although they would not provide any further details, officials from NationsBank and BankAmerica said that they expected a limited number of banks to participate.

The move was hailed by some bankers as a strong, preemptive strike at the potential threat of nonbanks in the electronic financial services market.

At the time the banks' acquisition of Meca was announced, Microsoft was still wrangling with the Justice Department to push through its own acquisition of Intuit. That deal would have greatly improved Microsoft's standing in the realm of electronic financial services and ultimately, bankers feared, cut into the most lucrative areas of the financial industry.

Shortly after the Meca deal was announced, Microsoft backed out of the Intuit acquisition, saying that the legal issues would slow up the company's overall electronic commerce strategy.

Managing Your Money has about 600,000 users, compared with Quicken's customer base of seven million. The Meca product is sold through 7,000 retail outlets.

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