The History of Bank of America

Bank of America serves over 57 million customers with 5,900 banking centers and 18,000 ATMs in the U.S. Bank of America began in 1904 as the Bank of Italy in San Francisco by Amadeo Giannini to cater to immigrants who were denied service to other banks. In 1922, it was renamed as Bank of America and Bank of Italy branches. In 1927, Giannini consolidated Bank of Italy branches with Liberty Bank of America which was renamed Bank of Italy National Trust & Savings Association. In 1928, Giannini merged with Bank of America Los Angeles. In 1930, Bank of Italy was renamed Bank of America.

New technologies allowed credit cards to be linked to individual bank accounts. In 1958, the bank introduced the BankAmericard, which changed its name to Visa in 1975. Following the passage of the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956, BankAmerica Corporation was established to own Bank of America and its subsidiaries. BankAmerica expanded outside California in 1983 with its acquisition of Seafirst Corporation and its banking subsidiary, Seattle-First National Bank. BankAmerica continued to operate its new subsidiary as Seafirst until the 1998 merger with NationsBank.

BankAmerica's next acquisition occurred in 1992. The company acquired Security Pacific Corporation and its subsidiary Security Pacific National. At that time it was the largest bank acquisition in history. Federal regulators, however, forced the sale of approximately half of Security Pacific's Washington subsidiary, the former Rainier Bank. The combination of Seafirst and Security Pacific Washington would have given BankAmerica too large a share of the market in Washington state. The Washington branches were divided and sold off to West One Bancorp (now U.S. Bancorp) and KeyBank. Later that year, BankAmerica expanded into Nevada by acquiring Valley Bank of Nevada.

In 1994, BankAmerica acquired the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago. At the time, no bank had the resources to bail out Continental, so the federal government operated the bank for almost a decade. Illinois at that time regulated branch banking extremely heavily, so Bank of America Illinois was a single-unit bank until the 2000.

In 1997, BankAmerica acquired Robertson Stephens, a San Francisco-based investment bank. The bank was integrated into BancAmerica Securities and the combined subsidiary was renamed BancAmerica Robertson Stephens. BankAmerica was acquired by NationsBank in October 1998 and took the name Bank of America Corporation.

In 2004, Bank of America announced it would purchase Boston-based bank FleetBoston Financial. Also in 2004 Bank of America acquired Louisville from National City Corporation and rebranded it as BA Merchant Services. Bank of America also purchased FleetBoston Financial. On June 30, 2005, Bank of America announced it would purchase MBNA and was renamed FIA Card Services.

In August 2006 Banco Itaú agreed to purchase Bank of America's operations in Chile and Uruguay. On November 20, 2006, Bank of America announced the purchase of The United States Trust Company for $3.3 billion, from the Charles Schwab Corporation and the deal closed July 1, 2007.

On September 14, 2007, Bank of America won approval from the Federal Reserve to acquire LaSalle Bank Corporation from Netherlands's ABN AMRO North America and the deal closed on October 1, 2007.

On August 23, 2007 the company announced a $2 billion repurchase agreement for Countrywide Financial and the deal closed in July 2008. Countrywide Financial changed its name to Bank of America Home Loans. On September 14, 2008, Bank of America announced its intentions to purchase Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. and the acquisition effectively saved Merrill from bankruptcy. This acquisition made Bank of America the largest financial services company in the world and the deal closed January 1, 2009.

Bank of America received Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) money twice as part of the deal of the merger with Merrill Lynch and repaid the $45 billion it had received from the TARP Program. On August 3, 2009, Bank of America agreed to pay a $33 million fine, without admission or denial of charges, to the SEC over the non-disclosure of an agreement to pay up to $5.8 billion of bonuses at Merrill Lynch. The bank approved the bonuses before the merger but did not disclose them to its shareholders when the shareholders were considering approving the Merrill acquisition.

In 2010, the bank was accused by the federal government of defrauding schools, hospitals, and some state and local government organizations due to misconduct and illegal activities involving the investment of proceeds from municipal bond sales. As a result, the bank agreed to pay $137.7 million, including $25 million to the IRS and $4.5 million to the state attorneys general, to the affected organizations to settle the allegations.

Former bank official Douglas Campbell pleaded guilty to conspiracy, antitrust and wire fraud charges. As of January 2011, other bankers and brokers are under indictment or investigation. Early in the year, the company conducted or announced personnel reductions of 36,000 people.

Bank of America provides services: personal banking, small business banking and corporate and institutional banking. Services provided in personal banking include: credit cards, mortgage, auto and personal loans, insurance, investment services, online banking, home equity and retirement. Small business services include: business checking and savings, credit cards, online banking services, automotive services and health insurance.

Are Debit Cards Dead

The Credit CARD Act of 2009, as well as the Dodd-Frank Act Financial Reform Act and interchange and overdraft fee reform, have reduced revenue banks earned from the credit and debit cards consumers. Banks have responded by reducing or eliminating rewards programs and other perks and increasing ATM fees to $5 and increasing other bank fees.

Some reward cards program will be funded by retailers where you use your card instead of the banks. If frequently shop at specific businesses your bank may request that the retailer offer discounts.

This however can work against consumers because it will force consumers to spend more money to get fewer discounts. Retailer claims consumers will get more discounts and offers based on their shopping history. Consumers can still get rewards with airlines, hotels and credit cards.

Wells Fargo ended it's debit rewards card program and is currently testing a $3 monthly fee for debit card users in four states. Chase, SunTrust, Continental and United ended their debit card rewards program in July 2011. Free checking at some banks such as Bank of America will also be eliminated. TD Bank still offer debit cards.

Ally Bank offers a debit card reward program that puts cash into a consumer’s account. However, consumers do not earn points or miles with every purchase. The cash is used for making purchases through partner retailers.

Perk Street Financial offers an online checking account that provides rewards for any checkcard card credit transactions. You can earn 2% cash back if your balance is over $5,000 up to 90 days.

If your balance is under $5,000 after the 90 days introductory period, you will earn 1% rewards. The bank doesn’t charge monthly maintenance fees and offer 5% cash back with partner vendors which change each month. Use financial site like bankrate.com to comparison shop for debit card reward programs to find the best deal.

Do You Have Swipe-itis

Do you use your check card/debit card to make all of your purchases? Have you stopped carrying cash? Do you feel lost without your debit card? You are not alone. There are over 520 million debit cards in use in the United States. Most of them are Visa and MasterCard debit cards.

It can be difficult to resist the temptation of the instant gratification culture of America. Advertisers make it easy for consumers to get everything instantly by creating online shopping, instant cereal, instant coffee, instant meals, instant messaging, and debit card purchases at most stores and businesses. Most Americans who have a debit card buy an item immediately when they see it either in a store or online. This bad habit has caused many Americans to overdraw their account, pay overdraft fees, spend more money than they have, damage their relationship with their bank and may lower their credit score.

No matter what form of payment you use you have to keep track of your spending. You should track your spending weekly if you frequently use a check card. This will help to see where you are spending your money and will help you to recognize errors or identity theft quickly. When you see where you are spending your money it is easier to reduce spending and make better choices when making purchases.

There are advantages and disadvantages to using a check card. Some advantages of using a debit card: it is easier to obtain versus a credit card, can be used in place of checks, accepted everywhere, transactions can be made quicker and can be used to get cash from an ATM or retail store that offers cash-back during a purchase. The disadvantages of using a debit card are: you can spend more than you have in your account; you can incur overdraft fees and can become a victim of identity theft. Here a 9 ways to stop swipeitis:

1. Pay your bills first. Put a portion of any extra money left over in a savings account.
2. Alternate payment. Use other forms of payments such as cash when making a purchase.
3. Get a receipt. Get a receipt each time you make a purchase and keep it.
4. Track spending. Take all of your receipts from your debit card purchases and put them in an envelope. At the end of each week add up the receipts to see how much you spent. Use pen and paper, an Excel spreadsheet or Mint.com to enter the data. You can import bank account transactions to your Mint.com account to simplify the process of tracking your spending.
5. Wait. Wait a few days before making a purchase that is more than $100. Go back to the store to see if you still want the item. If you still want the item, comparison shop to see which store offers the best price.
6. Retail therapy. Avoid shopping when you are emotional. This will prevent you from spending more than you have or buying unnecessary items.
7. Create a budget. Create a budget to track your spending daily or weekly. Set aside a specific amount for extra things you want. One reach that amount don’t spend anymore.
8. Leave at home. Leave your debit card at home unless you know you will make a purchase. This helps to reduce the temptation to make an unnecessary purchase.
9. Get cash. Go to the bank and take out the amount of cash you need for the week. Once you spend that amount don’t get out any more money or use your debit card unless it is an emergency.