Profile

The Bank of America Corporation is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, with central hubs in New York City, London, Hong Kong, Dallas, and Toronto. Founded in San Francisco, Bank of America was formed through NationsBank's acquisition of BankAmerica in 1998. It is the second largest banking institution in the United States, after JPMorgan Chase, and the eighth largest bank in the world. Bank of America is one of the Big Four banking institutions of the United States. It services approximately 10.73% of all American bank deposits, in direct competition with JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. Its primary financial services revolve around commercial banking, wealth management, and investment banking. One branch of its history stretches back to Bank of Italy, founded by Amadeo Pietro Giannini in 1904, which provided Italian immigrants who faced service discrimination various banking options. Originally headquartered in San Francisco, California, Giannini acquired Banca d'America e d'Italia in 1922. The passage of landmark federal banking legislation facilitated a rapid growth in the 1950s, quickly establishing a prominent market share. After suffering a significant loss after the 1998 Russian bond default, BankAmerica, as it was then known, was acquired by the Charlotte-based NationsBank for US$62 billion. Following what was then the largest bank acquisition in history, the Bank of America Corporation was founded. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, it built upon its commercial banking business by establishing Merrill Lynch for wealth management and Bank of America Merrill Lynch for investment banking in 2008 and 2009, respectively .