MBNA

MBNA Corporation was a bank holding company and parent company of wholly owned subsidiary MBNA America Bank, N.A., headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, prior to being acquired by Bank of America in 2006. It was the world's largest independent credit card issuer, specializing in affinity cards.

MBNA was founded in 1982 as Maryland Bank, N.A., a subsidiary of Maryland National Bank. The letters N.A. stood for National Association. In 1989, Maryland Bank was renamed MBNA America Bank. MBNA Corp. spun off from Maryland National and became an independent company in 1991. Maryland National was acquired by NationsBank in 1993.

History

The former Maryland National Bank, once the largest banking chain in Maryland originated as the Baltimore Trust Company in the early 20th Century. It later was challenged by the expenses and problems from the building of its landmark iconic art deco-style skyscraper of red brick, masonry and limestone trim, headquarters in downtown Baltimore at 10 Light Street between East Redwood (formerly German Street before World War I) and East Baltimore Streets. The new BTC Building which immediately became the tallest building in Baltimore and Maryland, surpassing the neighboring Citizens National Bank to the south, was begun in 1924 and completed in 1929, just before the avalanche of economic disaster, unemployment and the now deepening Great Depression in the early 1930s following the Wall Street Crash of 1929. After a series of reorganizations during the "New Deal" administration of 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his bank holiday in 1933, shortly after taking office in March, the bank was reorganized as the Maryland National Bank.