Few glitches arise as bank integrates MBNA cards

Bank of America Corp. says its transfer of about 50 million credit card accounts to a new processing system over the weekend went off mostly without a hitch. But at least some of its customers -- the company couldn't say how many -- might have trouble accessing their account information online for the next few days as the bank completes work it said last week would be finished by yesterday .

"As you do something of this size, there are always some little things that you fix along the way," said Cliff Skelton, Bank of America's executive in charge of the MBNA integration.

The transition stemmed from the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's $35 billion acquisition of MBNA Corp., one of the country's largest credit card issuers, last year. MBNA had 72 million cards in circulation, and its new owner decided to shift all of its customers onto an upgraded version of the system that lets customers make payments and view their account details online and also issues bills and is responsible for authorizing credit card charges.

MBNA's customers used that company's website to access their accounts for information such as balances and to make payments until Monday, when Bank of America started steering them to bankofamerica.com.

Skelton said the company had gotten some customer service calls regarding the transition but did not know how many.

Some customers, he said, had problems accessing their data because the system had to be taken down for a time while the new one was activated. That problem could persist for a few days, he said.

"Maybe for the next couple of days, people might see that upgrading activity, but we're winding that down quickly," he said.

Some analysts said the transition seems to have avoided many potential problems.

Gwenn Bezard , research director at Aite Group , a Boston banking consulting firm, said a major snafu in the integration of the two systems could have led to some customer records being lost or incorrect information being printed on their credit card statements.

"As a cardholder, I would definitely track closely my credit card statements," he said. "But I would say the most likely disruptions would be minor."

The changeover is being closely watched in the banking and credit card industries as a bellwether of how well Bank of America could serve its new customers and whether the company could take a step in the direction of gaining more banking business by integrating MBNA's customers onto its own website and customer service calling centers.

One consultant watching the merger said last week that the project was likely to cost Bank of America hundreds of millions of dollars annually, but Skelton disputed that, saying that combining its system with MBNA's would actually save the company money.

Bank of America is spending $1.3 billion , after taxes, on its overall integration of MBNA into its operations, he said. But the company has already saved $795 million in personnel, marketing, and technology expenses in the first three quarters of this year related to the merger, he said.

Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.