Bank of America is one of the largest commercial banks in the United States. It is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. Bank of America was created in 1998 by the merger of BankAmerica and NationsBank, two large U.S. bank holding companies. BankAmerica was the holding company for an earlier Bank of America. That bank was founded in San Francisco by Amadeo P. Giannini in 1904 and was called the Bank of Italy until 1930. Bank of America attained its size in part through the acquisition (purchase) of smaller financial institutions in the early 2000’s—including MBNA, LaSalle Bank, the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial, and the investment firm Merrill Lynch.
The acquisitions of Countrywide and Merrill Lynch were made during the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and created challenges for Bank of America. By 2009, the bank had received nearly $45 billion in funds from the U.S. government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Bank of America repaid the TARP funds to the government by the end of 2009. Bank of America’s legal difficulties relating to the financial crisis that began in 2008 were costly. Since 2011, it has paid out billions of dollars in legal settlements. Some settlements were paid to investors who claimed they had been misled as to the nature of the mortgages packaged into investments by Bank of America or its acquisitions. Bank of America also settled a suit brought by minority borrowers who had been discriminated against by Countrywide. In August 2014, Bank of America agreed to a $16.65-billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over allegations that the bank misled investors into buying risky mortgage-backed securities. Some of the money was to go to struggling homeowners who had received mortgages from the bank.
