WaMu credit-card losses may hit 24 percent, JPMorgan says

JPMorgan Chase said in its quarterly earnings report that the integration of Washington Mutual into its Chase retail bank network is proceeding on schedule, and it projected heavy losses in the credit-card portfolio it acquired along with WaMu's banking operations.

The company, which bought the WaMu banking operations last fall, has completed the rebranding of 708 WaMu branch offices and 1,900 ATMs in California, and has closed nearly 300 branches in markets where Chase and WaMu overlapped. It expects 92 more closures by the end of this year.

WaMu branches in Washington and Oregon are now being re-signed and repainted; employees in both states have been wearing Chase shirts and nametags for the past few weeks.

In its financial report, JPMorgan did not break out many details of the former WaMu operations, except for its $25.9 billion credit-card portfolio.

The company said it expects losses in the WaMu portfolio to range between 18 percent and 24 percent by the end of 2009, compared with 9 percent or higher in Chase's legacy portfolio. The charge-off rate for the whole portfolio was 7.72 percent in the quarter; excluding the WaMu loans, the charge-off rate would have been 6.86 percent.