Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America), a bank holding company and a financial holding company, provides a diverse range of financial services and products throughout the U.S. and in certain international markets.
Bank of America is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments with a full range of banking, investing, asset management, and other financial a...
Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America), a bank holding company and a financial holding company, provides a diverse range of financial services and products throughout the U.S. and in certain international markets.
Bank of America is one of the world’s largest financial institutions, serving individual consumers, small- and middle-market businesses, institutional investors, large corporations, and governments with a full range of banking, investing, asset management, and other financial and risk management products and services. Through the company’s various bank and nonbank subsidiaries throughout the U.S. and in international markets, it provides a diversified range of banking and nonbank financial services and products.
As of December 31, 2024, the company served clients through operations across the U.S., its territories, and more than 35 countries. The company’s retail banking footprint covers all major markets in the U.S., and it serves approximately 69 million consumer and small business clients with approximately 3,700 retail financial centers, approximately 15,000 ATMs, and leading digital banking platforms (www.bankofamerica.com) with approximately 48 million active users, including approximately 40 million active mobile users. It offers industry-leading support to approximately four million small business households. The company’s GWIM businesses provide tailored solutions to meet client needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, trust, and retirement products. It is a global leader in corporate and investment banking and trading across a broad range of asset classes, serving corporations, governments, institutions, and individuals around the world.
Segments
The company operates through four business segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), Global Banking, and Global Markets, with the remaining operations recorded in All Other.
Consumer Banking
Consumer Banking, which consists of Deposits and Consumer Lending, offers a diversified range of credit, banking, and investment products and services to consumers and small businesses. Deposits and Consumer Lending include the net impact of migrating customers and their related deposit, brokerage asset, and loan balances between Deposits, Consumer Lending, and GWIM, as well as other client-managed businesses. The company’s customers and clients have access to a coast-to-coast network, including financial centers in various states and the District of Columbia. As of December 31, 2024, the company’s network included approximately 3,700 financial centers, various ATMs, nationwide call centers, and leading digital banking platforms with approximately 48 million active users, including approximately 40 million active mobile users.
Deposits
Deposits include the results of consumer deposit activities that consist of a comprehensive range of products provided to consumers and small businesses. The company’s deposit products include noninterest- and interest-bearing checking accounts, money market savings accounts, traditional savings accounts, CDs, and IRAs, as well as investment accounts and products. Net interest income is allocated to deposit products using the company’s funds transfer pricing process that matches assets and liabilities with similar interest rate sensitivity and maturity characteristics. Deposits generate fees, such as account service fees, non-sufficient funds fees, overdraft charges, and ATM fees, as well as investment and brokerage fees from Consumer Investment accounts. Consumer Investments serve investment client relationships through the Merrill Edge integrated investing and banking service platform, providing investment advice and guidance, client brokerage asset services, self-directed online investing, and key banking capabilities, including access to the company’s network of financial centers and ATMs.
Consumer Lending
Consumer Lending offers products to consumers and small businesses across the U.S. The products offered include debit and credit cards, residential mortgages and home equity loans, and direct and indirect loans, such as automotive, recreational vehicle, and consumer personal loans. In addition to earning net interest spread revenue on its lending activities, Consumer Lending generates interchange revenue from debit and credit card transactions, late fees, cash advance fees, annual credit card fees, mortgage banking fee income, and other miscellaneous fees. Consumer Lending products are available to the company’s customers through its retail network, direct telephone, and online and mobile channels. Consumer Lending results also include the impact of servicing residential mortgages and home equity loans, including loans held on the balance sheet of Consumer Lending and loans serviced for others.
Global Wealth & Investment Management
GWIM consists of two primary businesses: Merrill Wealth Management and Bank of America Private Bank.
Merrill Wealth Management’s advisory business provides a high-touch client experience through a network of financial advisors focused on clients with over $250,000 in total investable assets. Merrill Wealth Management provides tailored solutions to meet clients’ needs through a full set of investment management, brokerage, banking, and retirement products.
Bank of America Private Bank, together with Merrill Wealth Management’s Private Wealth Management business, provides comprehensive wealth management solutions targeted to high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients, as well as customized solutions to meet clients’ wealth structuring, investment management, trust, and banking needs, including specialty asset management services.
Global Banking
Global Banking, which includes Global Corporate Banking, Global Commercial Banking, Business Banking, and Global Investment Banking, provides a wide range of lending-related products and services, integrated working capital management and treasury solutions, and underwriting and advisory services through its network of offices and client relationship teams. The company’s lending products and services include commercial loans, leases, commitment facilities, trade finance, commercial real estate lending, and asset-based lending. The company’s treasury solutions business includes treasury management, foreign exchange, short-term investing options, and merchant services. It also provides investment banking services to its clients, such as debt and equity underwriting and distribution, and merger-related and other advisory services. Underwriting debt and equity issuances, fixed-income and equity research, and certain market-based activities are executed through its global broker-dealer affiliates, which are its primary dealers in several countries. Within Global Banking, Global Corporate Banking clients generally include large global corporations, financial institutions, and leasing clients. Global Commercial Banking clients generally include middle-market companies, commercial real estate firms, and not-for-profit companies. Business Banking clients include mid-sized U.S.-based businesses requiring customized and integrated financial advice and solutions.
Global Corporate, Global Commercial, and Business Banking
Global Corporate, Global Commercial, and Business Banking each include Business Lending and Global Transaction Services activities. Business Lending includes various lending-related products and services and related hedging activities, including commercial loans, leases, commitment facilities, trade finance, real estate lending, and asset-based lending. Global Transaction Services includes deposits, treasury management, credit card, foreign exchange, and short-term investment products.
Global Investment Banking
Client teams and product specialists underwrite and distribute debt, equity, and loan products, and provide advisory services and tailored risk management solutions. The economics of certain investment banking and underwriting activities are shared primarily between Global Banking and Global Markets under an internal revenue-sharing arrangement. Global Banking originates certain deal-related transactions with its corporate and commercial clients that are executed and distributed by Global Markets.
Global Markets
Global Markets offers sales and trading services and research services to institutional clients across fixed-income, credit, currency, commodity, and equity businesses. Global Markets product coverage includes securities and derivative products in both the primary and secondary markets. Global Markets provides market-making, financing, securities clearing, settlement, and custody services globally to the company’s institutional investor clients in the support of their investing and trading activities. It also works with its commercial and corporate clients to provide risk management products using interest rate, equity, credit, currency, and commodity derivatives, foreign exchange, fixed-income, and mortgage-related products. As a result of the company’s market-making activities in these products, it may be required to manage risk in a broad range of financial products, including government securities, equity and equity-linked securities, high-grade and high-yield corporate debt securities, syndicated loans, MBS, commodities, and asset-backed securities. The economics of certain investment banking and underwriting activities are shared primarily between Global Markets and Global Banking under an internal revenue-sharing arrangement. Global Banking originates certain deal-related transactions with the company’s corporate and commercial clients that are executed and distributed by Global Markets.
All Other
All Other primarily consists of asset and liability management (ALM) activities, liquidating businesses, and certain expenses not otherwise allocated to a business segment. ALM activities encompass interest rate and foreign currency risk management activities for which substantially all of the results are allocated to the company’s business segments.
Investment Portfolio
As of December 31, 2024, the company’s investment portfolio included mortgage-backed securities, such as agency securities, agency-collateralized mortgage obligations, commercial securities, and non-agency residential securities; U.S. treasury and agency securities; non-U.S. securities; other taxable securities; and tax-exempt securities.
Government Supervision and Regulation
As a registered financial holding company and BHC, the company is subject to the supervision of and regular inspection by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (Federal Reserve).
The company’s U.S. bank subsidiaries (the Banks), organized as national banking associations, are subject to regulation, supervision, and examination by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve. In addition, the Federal Reserve and the OCC have adopted guidelines that establish minimum standards for the design, implementation, and board oversight of BHCs’ and national banks’ risk governance frameworks. The U.S. financial holding companies, and the companies under their control, are permitted to engage in activities considered ‘financial in nature’ as defined by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and related Federal Reserve interpretations. The company's status as a financial holding company is conditioned upon maintaining certain eligibility requirements for both the company and its U.S. depository institution subsidiaries, including minimum capital ratios, supervisory ratings, and in the case of the depository institutions, at least satisfactory Community Reinvestment Act ratings.
The company’s broker-dealer subsidiaries are subject to both the U.S. and international regulation, including supervision by the SEC, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and New York Stock Exchange, among others; the company’s futures commission merchant subsidiary supporting commodities and derivatives businesses in the U.S. is subject to regulation by and supervision of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), National Futures Association, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and in the case of the Banks, certain banking regulators; the company’s insurance activities are subject to licensing and regulation by state insurance regulatory agencies; and the company’s consumer financial products and services are regulated by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).
The company’s non-U.S. businesses are also subject to extensive regulation by various non-U.S. regulators, including governments, securities exchanges, prudential regulators, central banks, and other regulatory bodies, in the jurisdictions in which those businesses operate. For example, the company’s financial services entities are subject to regulation in the United Kingdom (U.K.) by the Prudential Regulatory Authority and Financial Conduct Authority, in Ireland by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Central Bank of Ireland, and in France by the ECB, Autorite de ContrÔle Prudentiel et de Resolution, and Autorite des Marches Financiers.
The company is subject to the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which contains anti-money laundering and financial transparency laws designed to detect and deter money laundering and the financing of terrorism, as well as record-keeping, reporting, due diligence, and customer verification requirements, various sanctions programs administered and enforced by the U.S.
Pursuant to Section 23A and 23B of the Federal Reserve Act, as implemented by the Federal Reserve’s Regulation W, the Banks are subject to restrictions that limit certain types of transactions between the Banks and their nonbank affiliates.
As a financial holding company, the company and its bank subsidiaries are subject to the regulatory capital and liquidity rules issued by the Federal Reserve and other U.S. banking regulators, including the OCC and the FDIC.
As a BHC with greater than $250 billion of assets, every two years, the company is required by the Federal Reserve and the FDIC to submit a plan for a rapid and orderly resolution in the event of material financial distress or failure.
The FDIC also requires the submission of a resolution plan for Bank of America, National Association (BANA), which must describe how the insured depository institution would be resolved under the bank resolution provisions of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act. A description of this plan is available on the FDIC’s website.
The company’s derivatives businesses are subject to extensive regulation globally, including under the Financial Reform Act, the European Union (EU) Markets in Financial Instruments Directive and Regulation, the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, analogous U.K. regulatory regimes, and similar regulatory regimes in other jurisdictions.
The company’s consumer businesses are subject to extensive regulation and oversight by federal and state regulators. Certain federal consumer finance laws to which it is subject, including the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, Fair Housing Act, Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), Fair Credit Reporting Act, Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act, prohibitions on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices, Truth in Lending Act, and Truth in Savings Act, are enforced by the CFPB. Other federal consumer finance laws, such as the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, are enforced by the OCC.
The company is subject to many U.S. federal, state, and international laws and regulations governing requirements for maintaining policies and procedures regarding the collection, disclosure, use, and protection of the personal information of its customers and employees. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act requires the company to periodically disclose its privacy policies and practices relating to the disclosure of customer information and enables retail customers to opt out of its ability to share information with unaffiliated third parties, under certain circumstances. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and other laws also require the company to implement a comprehensive information security program that includes administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to provide the security and confidentiality of customer records and information.
Other laws and regulations, at the international, federal, and state level, impact the company’s ability to share certain information with affiliates and non-affiliates for marketing and/or non-marketing purposes, or contact customers with marketing offers and establish certain rights of consumers in connection with their personal information. For example, California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides consumers with the right to know what personal data is being collected, know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed, and to whom, and opt out of the sale of their personal data, among other rights. In addition, in the EU and other countries around the world, similar laws, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), afford those countries’ residents with certain rights related to their information and may impose additional obligations on financial institutions. These laws’ impact on the company was assessed and addressed through comprehensive compliance implementation programs. These existing and evolving legal requirements in the U.S. and abroad, as well as court proceedings and changing guidance from regulatory bodies, including the validity of cross-border data transfer mechanisms from the EU and other jurisdictions, continue to lend uncertainty to privacy compliance globally.
History
Bank of America Corporation was founded in 1784. The company was incorporated in 1998.
