Americas Bank history

Amadeo Peter Giannini was born in San Jose, California in 1870.

NCNB traces its illustrious history back to the Commercial National Bank, which was organized by several prominent Charlotte citizens in 1874.

Around the time Sovran Bank's foundations were being laid, the Citizens Bank of Savannah, Georgia, opened its doors in the temperate coastal city on November 2, 1887.

When Giannini's father-in-law died in 1902, his widow and 11 children did not divvy up his $1 million estate.

A.P. Giannini in 1904.

No dividend was paid that year, for the first time since 1905, and the battle had cost Giannini his New York banks.

During the famous San Francisco earthquake of 1906, Giannini rescued $80,000 in cash before the bank building burned by hiding it in a wagon full of oranges and bringing it to his house for safekeeping.

Accordingly, the Bank of Italy bought its first branch, a struggling San Jose bank, in 1909.

The bank grew rapidly; in 1910 it had assets of $6.5 million.

By 1920, assets totaled $157 million, far outstripping the growth of any other California bank.

Finally, in 1927, California regulations were changed to permit branch banking, and Giannini merged his four banks into the Bank of America of California.

In response, Giannini created another holding company in 1928, to supplant BancItaly.

So, in 1929, the year Bank of America passed the $1 billion mark in assets, Transamerica bought Blair.

On November 1, 1930, the Bank of Italy in San Francisco changed its name to Bank of America.

His stay ended abruptly in 1931, when he received news that Walker was trying to liquidate Transamerica.

By 1936, Bank of America was the fourth-largest banking institution in the United States (and the second-largest savings bank) and assets had grown to $2.1 billion.

The beginning of the end came in 1937, when the Federal Reserve made its first attempt to force Transamerica and Bank of America to separate.

As people and businesses flocked to California during the war, the bank more than doubled in size: in 1945, with assets of $5 billion, it passed Chase Manhattan to become the world’s largest bank.

When A.P. Giannini died in 1949, the former single-teller office in North Beach claimed more than 500 branches and $6 billion in assets.

Finally, in 1957, the Federal Reserve forced Transamerica to separate from Bank of America, an event the two institutions had anticipated.

In 1959, it was the first bank to fund a small-business investment company.

The bank continued to innovate. It was also the first United States bank to adopt electronic and computerized record-keeping; by 1961, operations were completely computerized.

In 1968 the newly named BankAmerica Corporation was organized in Delaware as a holding company for Bank of America NT & SA and other financial subsidiaries.

The bank continued to acquire smaller institutions, and by 1969 NCNB had grown to 91 offices in 27 North Carolina counties with deposits of more than one billion dollars.

By 1970, Bank of America had established a $100 million loan fund for housing in poverty-stricken areas and purchased municipal bonds that other California banks would not touch.

A.W. “Tom” Clausen succeeded Rudy Peterson as chief executive officer (CEO) in 1971.

The bank also responded to complaints from women's groups by creating a $3.8 million fund for training female employees in 1974, and set itself the goal of a 40 percent-female workforce.

1975: BankAmerica's assets reach $60 billion.

When Clausen left Bank of America in 1981 to head the World Bank, Bank of America had $112.9 billion in assets.

One of BankAmerica’s most significant acquisitions was the 1983 purchase of Washington state bank Seafirst Corporation, which was the biggest United States interstate bank merger to date.

1984: Two major institutions, Virginia National Bankshares and First and Merchants, merge to form Sovran Financial Corp.

In 1986, NCNB benefited from a change in North Carolina's interstate banking laws.

By November of 1987, Sovran was moving west by merging with Commerce Union, a 71-year-old bank holding company based in Nashville.

Another purchase was a subsidiary of GNA Securities that had operated an investment program in the bank's branches since 1988.

Fortune magazine also chose McColl as one of the year's twenty-five most fascinating business people--the only one selected from the banking industry--in its January 1989 issue.

Soon thereafter, C&S and Sovran merged in a deal finalized on September 1, 1990.

After purchasing its major competitor in California, Security Pacific Corporation, in 1991, Bank of America became the first bank to offer coast-to-coast operations in the United States.

After nine months of preparation, the merger of BankAmerica Corp. and Security Pacific Corp. became final on April 22, 1992.

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Continental Illinois National Bank, acquired in 1994.

In 1996, the company announced the $9.6 billion acquisition of St Louis, Missouri-based Boatmen's Bancshares Inc.

McColl took control of the new company as chairman and CEO. Coulter, however, resigned his presidency in the Fall of 1998 amid speculation that he and McColl had come into conflict over some of BankAmerica's previous bad loans and lost earnings.

2001: Kenneth D. Lewis is named chairman and CEO; the company focuses on brand recognition.

MBNA, acquired in 2005.

United States Trust, acquired in 2006.

As the global financial crisis emerged in 2008, numerous institutions began to struggle, notably Countrywide Financial, the largest American mortgage lender, and Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

In January 2009 Bank of America announced that it would receive $20 billion in United States government aid and an additional $118 billion in guarantees against bad assets incurred as a result of the acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

In 2012 it agreed to pay $2.43 billion to settle a class-action suit involving allegations that the company had failed to disclose to investors the true financial health of Merrill Lynch.

In 2013 the United States government sued Bank of America for financial fraud, and the following year the company agreed to pay $16.65 billion.

In 2015, Bank of America began expanding organically, opening branches in cities where it previously did not have a retail presence.

One of the reasons Bank of America's stock price has roughly doubled since early 2016 is that interest rates have started to rise and are expected to keep doing so, especially now that Donald Trump is in the White House.

As of March 31, 2017, Bank of America has $635.6 billion in consumer banking deposits, giving it the No.