Washington Mutual Rolls Out Concept Bank at 40 Locations

PHOENIX-It’s not your father’s bank. Washington Mutual, a start-up bank that patterns its facilitiesafter Starbucks and Nordstrom’s, two of corporate neighbors in Seattle, plans to open eight banking locations in the Valley later this month. The locations will have none of the traditional designs found in most banks, like teller lines and staid décor.

Instead, the centers, known as an Occasio stores, from the Latin work meaning “favorable opportunity,” will have teller “towers,” where associates will work with the customers to complete their transaction on touch-screen computers. Also part of the design is a wide-screen TV; children’s play area; and retail store with a selection of finance-related books, software and children’s items. Eight employees staff the stores.

The Occasio stores will be built at: Mesa Spectrum and Superstition Springs in Mesa, Kierland Village and Scottsdale Ranch in Scottsdale, Mountainview Marketplace and Camelback Colonnade in Phoenix, 67th Avenue and Deer Valley Road and 59th Avenue and Beardsley Road in Glendale.