MBNA Corp., the nation's second-largest Visa/MasterCard issuer, announced Tuesday that Kenneth A. Vecchione will become its chief financial officer Sept. 30.
He will succeed Vernon H.C. Wright, who will retire Dec. 15.
Mr. Vecchione, 50, will remain the CFO of the Wilmington, Del., company's principal operating subsidiary, MBNA America Bank.
He joined MBNA America in 1998 as the division head of finance. In that job, which he held until becoming the bank's CFO in 2000, he oversaw accounting and tax, corporate and strategic planning, and financial operations, and financial planning.
Before joining MBNA, he had been the CFO of AT&T Universal Card Services, which is now part of Citigroup Inc. Earlier he had been the CFO and the group president of First Data Corp.'s electronic funds management business. Before that he had been the CFO of credit card operations for Citicorp.
After he retires Mr. Wright will remain a director of MBNA America and will advise the parent company on capital markets, regulatory matters, funding structures, and relationships with rating agencies. He will also meet with MBNA's fixed-income investors and will focus on industry issues, including securitization, capital, and accounting.
Sandler O'Neill & Partners, L.P. issued a research note after MBNA's announcement, maintaining its "buy" rating and estimates on the company.
"While we view the retirement of Mr. Wright as a slight negative, we view positively the appointment of Mr. Vecchione to CFO," Sandler O'Neill said. "We are pleased to see Mr. Wright continue to play an advisory role at the company, and remain as a bank director. We believe this transition was in the works for a while, as Mr. Vecchione has had substantive input on corporate strategy for some time."
