Bank of America started as Bank of Italy
Amedeo Giannini, son of Italian immigrants to the US, started the Bank of America in a converted saloon in San Francisco at 9 am on Monday, 17 October 1904. On the first day, 28 deposits totalled $8,780.
When an earthquake struck in 1907, he ran his bank from a plank in the street. Word quickly spread about his service and by 1916 he had several branches. By 1929, the bank was strong enough to withstand the Great Depression stock crash. Giannini changed the name to Bank of America in 1928 and remained chairman until 1963.
The Bank of Italy in Italy was created in 1893 through the merger of 3 of the 6 banks at the time: Banca Nazionale nel Regno d'Italia and 2 Tuscan banks.
The Bank of England was founded by William Patterson after King William III of England found himself badly in need of funds to fight a war with France in 1694. Patterson provided the funds after the king agreed to order all the goldsmiths of London to stop issuing receipts as depositories for precious metals, forcing merchants to store their gold with the new bank. The Bank of England was finally authorised in 1946.
The Reichsbank of Germany was founded by Meyer Amschel Rothschild (1743-1812), who appointed his son Karl over the Bank of Naples, and his son Salomon over the Bank of Vienna. Later, his son Edmund presided over the Bank of Germany,and his son Nathan over the Bank of England.
By the time of the American Civil War (1861 - 1865) there were 1600 banks in the US, issuing about 7,000 different kinds of bank notes.
In 1861, the US Congress authorised "promissory notes," calling them "greenbacks" to contrast in colour with notes issued by private banks. The US Treasury held the impressive sum of $346,681,016. (Link)
In 1909, Amadeo Peter Giannini, a bold, farsighted businessman and founder of the San Francisco Bank of Italy, established the bank's first out-of-town branch in his native city of San José . Built at the corner of Lightston and Santa Clara Streets, San José's new Bank of Italy represented Giannini's first step towards his creation of one of the world's largest privately owned banks, the Bank of America.
Originally concerned over the inadequate banking service offered the Italian community at the turn of the century, Giannini founded the Bank of Italy in 1904. By 1930 the bank had grown to become nationally famous as the Bank of America. Beginning with San José's Bank of Italy branch and followed by his subsequent development of the first successful branch banking system in the United States, Giannini set the pace of banking in this country as well as hastening and strengthening the growth of California.
The Bank of America funded the reconstruction at History Park as a Bicentennial Project in 1977. All artifacts in the bank are from the Bank of America and were used in San José branches.
In 1958, it invented the bank credit card, the BankAmericard, which changed its name to VISA in 1975. A consortium of other California banks came up with Master Charge (now MasterCard) in order to compete with BankAmericard.
Following passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1967, BankAmerica Corp. was established for the purpose of owning Bank of America and its subsidiaries.
BankAmerica expanded outside California in 1983 with its acquisition of Seafirst Corp. of Seattle and its wholly owned banking subsidiary, Seattle-First National Bank. This happened when Seafirst was at risk of being seized by the federal government after becoming insolvent through a series of bad loans to the oil industry. However, BankAmerica continued to operate the banks as Seafirst rather than Bank of America until after the merger with NationsBank.
Bank of America was dealt huge losses in 1986 and 1987 due to bad loans in its Third World lending, particularly in Latin America. The company fired its CEO, Sam Armacost, although Armacost blamed the problems on his predecessor, A.W. (Tom) Clausen, who was then appointed to replace Armacost. The losses resulted in a huge decline of BankAmerica stock, making it vulnerable to a hostile takeover. First Interstate Bancorp of Los Angeles (which had been built from banks once owned by BofA), launched such a bid in the fall of 1986, although BankAmerica rebuffed it, mostly by selling its FinanceAmerica subsidiary to Chrysler and by selling the brokerage firm Charles Schwab and Co. back to Mr. Schwab. On the day of the stock market crash in 1987, BankAmerica was trading at $8 per share, although by 1992 it had rebounded mightily to become one of the biggest gainers of that half-decade.
In 2004, Bank of America Corp. acquired Boston, Massachusetts-based FleetBoston for $47 billion to solidify Bank of America's position as the bank with the largest FDIC rated deposit market share in the United States with $513 billion in deposits well ahead of the number 2 bank holding company, newly-merged J.P. Morgan Chase-Bank One with $353 billion in deposits and number 3 Wells Fargo & Co. with $228 billion. (Deposits as of June 30, 2003.) The combined Bank of America and Fleet have 5,700 branches serving 35 million customers in 29 states. After the merger with FleetBoston Financial, roughly 1 out of every 10 dollars on deposit in a commercial bank and savings and loan were deposits of Bank of America.
Although Bank of America Corp. and Bank of America and both much larger than their nearest rivals in terms of deposit share, other finacial services companies are larger on the basis of assets, profits, market capitalisation. (More at link)
It was not until the 1980s (Note from Rayelan: This is t he MAIN reason Reagan had to be elected no matter what they did to bring it about... even treason!!) with a change in federal banking legislation and regulation that Bank of America was again able to expand its domestic consumer banking activity outside of California.
In Los Angeles, immigrants who don't have credentials to work in the United States can still get a credit card, thanks to a pilot program run by Bank of America. The bank is hoping to tap a fast-growing market by offering credit cards to illegal immigrants without Social Security numbers.(At NPR-audio)
Bankrupcty administrators for a Parmalat subsidiary are suing Bank of America in federal court in Charlotte, contending the bank played a role in the food giant's insolvency.
Welcome to the machine. One of the three largest banks in the US by assets (along with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase), Bank of America boasts the country's most extensive branch network, with more than 6,100 locations covering some 30 states from coast to coast. Its core services include consumer and small business banking, credit cards, and asset management. In early 2009 Bank of America paid some $50 billion in stock for Merrill Lynch, which was crippled by the ongoing credit crisis. The acquisition of the once-mighty investment bank known as "The Bull," which has an extensive retail brokerage network, beefs up Bank of America's wealth management, investment banking, and international business.
Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2007:
Sales: $124,321.0M
One year growth: 6.2%
Net income: $14,982.0M
Income growth: (29.1%)
Officers:
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp, coping with tough economic conditions, raised $2.83 billion by selling part of its stake in China Construction Bank Corp, and Hong Kong's richest tycoon sold a $500 million stake in rival Bank of China.
Bank of
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