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JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s acquisition last year of Washington Mutual Inc. nearly helped it knock off Wells Fargo & Co. as the second largest debit card issuer behind Bank of America Corp., according to the 2010 edition of the ATM&Debit News EFT Data Book, which publishes next week. ATM&Debit News is a CardLine sister publication. Chase more than doubled its card portfolio, to 28.2 million cards at the end of 2008 compared with 13.9 million a year earlier. Though further consolidation might slow among the larger financial institutions, it will occur more often on the community or regional bank level as those institutions continue to struggle in an unstable economy, predicts Ali Raza, executive vice president of Alpharetta, Ga.-based consulting firm Speer & Associates Inc. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. last year made the biggest jump in rank, to fourth-largest issuer from 10th largest in 2007, thanks to its purchase of Cleveland-based National City Corp. The acquisition gave PNC 7.3 million debit cards, an increase of 135% from 3.1 million cards in 2007. Wells Fargo remains the nation's second-largest debit card issuer with 28.7 million cards at the end of December, up 40.7% from 20.4 million a year earlier, according to the EFT Data Book. Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia Corp. in 2008 after outbidding Citigroup Inc. In 2007, Wachovia was the fifth-largest debit card issuer with 10.4 million cards. BofA continues to top the list with 36.5 million debit cards, up 9.3% from 33.4 million. "[BofA] is sort of at the stage where they've hit the cap in terms of retail deposits," Raza says. "They are still working through some of their prior acquisitions [such as LaSalle Bank in 2007]." Overall, the 10 largest debit card issuers issued a combined 128.6 million cards as of the end of 2008, up 31.5% from 97.8 million a year earlier.
