mbanx

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

mbanx (later BMO mbanx Direct) is a Canadian virtual bank that has operated as a division of Bank of Montreal since October 1996. "mbanx" was erroneously thought by some to be a new brand name for the entire bank, as BMO focused virtually all its marketing efforts on the new unit during its first few months.

Developed at the start of the Internet banking revolution, mbanx was deemed the "first North America-wide virtual, full-service bank"; ^[1] it had no branches and was run separately from BMO proper. It launched to much fanfare, with an advertising campaign featuring Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are a-Changin'". The advertisements used the logotype form mbanx.

However, by the early 2000s, BMO and all other major Canadian banks had integrated Internet banking into their regular, branch-based services, making mbanx redundant. While not defunct, mbanx has not been actively promoted by BMO since 2001 or earlier, and its remaining operations are treated as a "direct banking" branch within the main bank, not a separate operation.