Whitney Holding Corp. of New Orleans has moved senior managers to Houston and started reopening branches in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The $8.9 billion-asset parent of Whitney National Bank reopened its branches in Houma, Thibodaux, and Gonzalez, La., on Thursday, along with its branch in Mobile.
Whitney said in a news release issued late Thursday that it would waive fees for customers who use other banks' automated teller machines.
Whitney's online bill-pay service was down for much of last week but was running Thursday. For business customers the company said it had updated its automated clearing house files for payroll processing and arranged to divert mail to Houston for users of its lockbox services.
Whitney's Florida, Texas, central Alabama, and south-central Louisiana locations were operating normally Friday afternoon. But the company said it was waiting for directives from local authorities before reopening branches in the New Orleans area and Mississippi. About half of Whitney's 151 branches had yet to reopen as of Friday afternoon.
