Bank of America 2004 Annual Report Download - page 16

The density of our presence in the nation’s diverse
urban regions creates the opportunity to provide financial
solutions to movers, home buyers and neighborhood
businesses, as well as newcomers to the United States
who confront language and cultural challenges. We are
a market leader, for example, with Hispanics, doing
business with 44% of U.S. Hispanic households. The
majority of new banking centers we opened over the past
two years serve Hispanic neighborhoods.
Along with serving consumers in many languages
and providing online, ATM and telephone banking services
in Spanish, we recruit talented people with numerous lan-
guage skills and cultural backgrounds. In 2004, nearly half
of all external hires in the consumer bank were bilingual.
The Fleet merger not only completed the bank’s
geographic continuity but also set a standard unmatched
in two decades of tumultuous consolidation in U.S. bank-
ing. Associates across the Northeast grew the customer
base while taking on the complex challenges of transi-
tion, more than doubling average daily sales per seller in
2004 and gaining five times more net new checking
accounts than the previous year.
The record indicates that customers across the
country take full advantage of the convenience, range of
choices and combination of personal service and technol-
ogy tools Bank of America offers them:
■Our nearly 6,000 banking centers host 600 million
customer visits annually. In 2004, Bank of America
tellers handled 1 billion over-the-counter transactions
for consumers and small business owners.
■In 2004, the number of active online banking customers
grew 34% to more than 12 million, including 734,000
small business customers. These numbers include
6 million active bill-pay customers—more than all of
our competitors combined. They make, on average,
30 million electronic bill payments every month.
■Our nearly 17,000 ATMs recorded more than 1.1 billion
transactions in 2004, including 175 million deposits.
■Bank of America Telephone Banking handles 700
million calls annually. Customers responded positively
in 2004 to new voice-recognition technology, which
makes banking by phone faster, friendlier and more
flexible for customers who need specialized help.
Bank of America is also the nation’s fastest-
growing major credit card company. The bank puts
credit cards at the core of its consumer business rather
than operating it as a stand-alone company, as many of
our competitors do. Credit cards are leading relationship
builders that pave the way for new banking relationships
with non-customers. During 2004, the bank sold 6.2
million new credit card accounts, compared with 5.9
million the previous year (including Fleet).
Mortgage-related products play a similar
relationship-building role for Bank of America. In 2004,
Bank of America was the nation’s number five retail
mortgage originator and the number two home equity
lender. The franchise of banking centers, combined with
Consumer Real Estate account executives and online
access, brings the mortgage application and preapproval
process closer to home for consumers and makes the
entire experience faster and easier than ever.
With superior products and services, associates
who really care and the unparalleled convenience of our
banking center, ATM, online and telephone banking
network, we can do more for customers than any other
financial institution.
With the addition of FleetBoston early in 2004, Bank of America is now
a fixture in the four densely populated corners of the
United States—and most of the fastest-growing markets in between.
BANK OF AMERICA 2004 15