"In an interview, Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf said Charlotte-based Wachovia and San Francisco-based Wells have signed a merger agreement and that "we're very confident that this will lead to a combination." Wells said it expects the deal to be completed by year's end.

"Citigroup shot back with a statement demanding Wachovia and Wells terminate the transaction.

"It seems likely that one of the banks will win Wachovia. But there is no consensus on what that new presence would look like or how many jobs would be lost. Each side promises to base headquarters of some operations here but is not specifying job cuts, which typically come with mega-mergers.

"The three-sided fight is the latest twist in a season that has turned the financial world upside down, with broad new economic powers for the government, the collapse of century-old financial firms, and a week of pinballing emotions in Charlotte, the country's second-biggest banking city.

" "There's going to be a legal and a bidding battle,' predicted Ken Thomas, a Miami-based banking consultant. 'Because in the end, only one of these banks is going to be a truly national bank.'

"On Monday, Charlotte shuddered when news came that one of its longtime banking heavyweights intended to sell most of itself to New York-based Citigroup. Citi and Wachovia had not signed a final merger agreement, but signed an "exclusivity agreement" that forbade Wachovia from soliciting or otherwise assisting in a merger with another company.

"That agreement does not appear to specify the penalty for breaking the contract, but Citi says that Wachovia is clearly violating it.

"Citi said Friday it has not decided whether to file a lawsuit but is exploring all options."

What could be the consequence of these buy-outs and mega-mergers?

Well, for one thing there could be higher fees. "For customers of those institutions ”Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase” the consolidation may result in higher fees on everything from checking accounts to bounced checks and overdrafts, and lower interest-rate yields on deposit accounts, banking experts said.

"Loan availability also remains in question in the near term, particularly after the defeat of the government's proposed financial bailout plan.

" 'The larger the bank is, theoretically the more power they have to set pricing and other policies,' said Nancy Atkinson, senior analyst at Aite Group, a financial services research firm. "I expect we'll start to see free checking accounts start to disappear, and rates on overdrafts could go up. Savings rates could drop.' "

However, the deeper, more insidious difficulty is a monopoly of a few large nationwide banks.  It was a problem exacerbated by the finanical debacle. 

After Obama is elected this terrible bailout bill should be repealed and 21st century New Deal regulatory laws and restructuring of the entire financial system must be completed with a return to local banks and S&L's where mortgages are initiated and the paper held by the originating bank, no more mortgage bundling..