Bank of America 2000 Annual Report Download - page 25

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Technology continues to enhance
our capabilities, enabling us to offer
new opportunities online. Bank of
America was one of the first banks to
offer Web-based commercial banking.
Bank of America Direct™ provides
an Internet-based transaction and
information network designed to
meet all of our clients’ treasury, pay-
ments and receipts needs by enabling
them to gather information and ini-
tiate transactions anytime and any-
where in the world, over the Internet.
Through Bank of America Direct,
middle market clients can be assured
of rapid access to cash management
reports, stop payment capabilities,
the ability to review paid checks and
research exceptions, or to access on-
line customer receivables records –
all in a secure environment. Bank
of America was one of the first
banks to complete large-scale deploy-
ment of digital certificates to assist
clients in the secure execution of
their transactions. Today, more than
2,000 middle market and 1,200 cor-
porate clients are using the service.
To ensure that we are able to
provide solutions for the breadth of
our clients’ complex needs, we have
local teams of dedicated profession-
als who provide comprehensive
investment banking services. For
our middle market and private bank-
ing clients, we completed approxi-
mately 12,000 transactions during
the past year, ranging from strategic
advisory assignments to equity and
debt capital raising and risk man-
agement services. Because of our
understanding of our clients’ indus-
tries, their unique business issues
and our demonstrated ability to
assist them in driving shareholder
value, we grew investment banking
revenues in the middle market by
47% in 2000, over the previous year.
Bank of America Direct and
Middle Market Investment Banking
represent some of our more
comprehensive capabilities. At the
same time, we continue to develop
new solutions to meet our clients’
everyday needs. For example, Banc
of America Marketplace,™ initially
focusing on small and medium-sized
businesses, offers a way to stream-
line a company’s procurement
needs in an online environment.
The marketplace provides businesses
with competitive pricing on the diverse
range of products and services they
routinely purchase, while the online
delivery allows purchases to be made
quickly and reduces the need for paper-
based record-keeping.
Bank of America was one of the
first banks to offer middle market
clients a single source for managing
purchase, travel and fleet spending
through the Bank of America Visa
Commercial Card. Realizing that one
size doesn’t fit all, we introduced an
enhanced card last fall with greater
customization. Now middle market
clients can use a card with the flexibil-
ity to change as their company grows.
In 21 states and the District of
Columbia, local client teams led by
nearly 700 client managers have one-
on-one contact with clients every day.
They represent decades of experience,
many of them in highly specialized
fields. Collectively, we believe they
possess unmatched knowledge cap-
ital that our clients have come to
respect and value. They serve as
trusted advisors who actively listen to
their clients, seeking to truly under-
stand and appreciate their businesses
and marshaling all the resources of
the bank to develop customized
solutions that will help our clients
meet specific growth objectives.
We look forward in the future
to offering middle market clients a
fully integrated Web portal (see page
24) that will get them anywhere they
need to go in cyberspace to find what
they need to make their businesses
more successful.
Tomio Moriguchi took over his father’s
fish market in 1962 and expanded it
into Uwajimaya, a sprawling produce
and Japanese specialty market in
Seattle (page 21). Although the oper-
ation is extensive enough to be
regarded as the cornerstone of that
city’s bustling International District,
the family-owned business is having to
expand further to keep up with the
ever-increasing demand for Asian
goods. Building on a banking relation-
ship spanning more than five decades,
Bank of America provided financing
for a new $35 million development
that enabled Uwajimaya to double the
size of its store and include apart-
ments, other retail outlets and park-
ing. The success of Uwajimaya earned
Mr. Moriguchi the William D. Bradford
Award from the University of Washington
for playing a vital role in the health of
the region’s economy and a cover
story in Washington CEO magazine.