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When Bank of America Corp. purchased Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. this week, it inherited some high-income clients and took over a number of credit and debit cards. The most popular card BofA gained in the deal was Merrill Lynch Access, a deferred debit card for clients who have a minimum of $500,000 in a Merrill's cash-management account, says Brian Riley, research director in Needham, Mass.-based TowerGroup's Bank Cards practice. Clients use the card to pay for purchases like they do with a standard debit card. However, unlike a standard debit card in which the issuer immediately subtracts charges from the cardholder's checking account, Merrill Lynch withdraws the amount owed from clients' cash management accounts at the end of each month, Riley says. Merrill provides clients "an interest-free line of credit," he says. "There are two things you can take away from BofA's purchase of Merrill Lynch," Riley continues. "They now have a lot of high-net-worth clients and, because the bank already processes debit card transactions for Merrill Lynch, it will be easy for Bank of America to integrate Merrill's debit card onto the bank's processing platform." Both BofA and Merrill Lynch issue Visa-branded credit and debit cards. BofA announced Monday it purchased Merrill Lynch for $50 billion in an all-stock transaction.
