Bank of America 2007 Annual Report Download - page 9

Bank of America 2007 7
enabled us to sustain our dividend at a time when others have not. Overall, 2007
was our 30th consecutive year of raising our quarterly dividend, which increased by
14 percent to $0.64 per share. Over that time, our dividend has increased at a compound
annual rate of 13 percent.
To bolster our capital ratios in the first quarter of 2008, we raised almost $13 billion
in two preferred stock offerings, and could have raised twice as much, demonstrating
investors’ confidence in our company. Bank of America will continue to be character-
ized by strong cash flow and attractive returns for shareholders, tremendous liquidity
and a fortress balance sheet. And we are still focused on achieving our long-term
financial goals, including 6 to 9 percent revenue growth, 2 to 4 percentage points
in operating leverage and 10 percent average annual earnings-per-share growth.
Strategies for growth. Our job in 2008 is to manage through the current economic storm and use our
advantages — size, scale, revenue diversity, innovation, integration and execution — to position the bank for
rapid growth when the storm abates. Here are some highlights of plans and progress in our three major
business lines.
Global Consumer & Small Business Banking (GCSBB)
I believe there are three keys to building a winning franchise in retail financial services: convenience,
innovation and service quality.
Convenience is a well-known strength of Bank of America. No company is more ubiquitous — we have
by far the largest network of banking centers and ATMs in the United States, and we are No. 1 in
telephone banking, online banking and bill-pay as well. Our products are also very easy for customers
to use. For example, our online bill-pay product won the Webby People’s Voice Award for the second year
in a row based on voting by the public, and Bank of America was named twice on IndexCreditCards.com’s
list of top 10 consumer-friendly credit cards.
Innovation has become a great strength of our company, in part because of the huge customer base
that we serve. With more than 3,000 customer transactions per second, we know a lot about customers’
needs and preferences. We invest in the analytical work that turns that knowledge into actionable
insight, which, in turn, helps us create new and better products and services that are attractive and
meaningful to our customers.
Examples from recent years have been Keep the Change®, free SafeSend® and $0 Online Equity Trades.
In 2007, we continued to introduce new products with the launch of No Fee Mortgage PLUS (which
eliminates most fees on conforming mortgages), Mobile Banking (which enables customers to bank with
their cell phones), new Risk Free CD products (which include high fixed rates and penalty-free withdrawals)
and the new BankAmericard™ (which offers more rewards points, no points limits and the most flexible
rewards options in the industry).
Service quality and customer satisfaction, of course, are critical. I wrote last year that after several years
of consistent gains in customer satisfaction, we had reached a plateau in many of our businesses, and
that each business was laying new plans to push scores even higher. Overall scores in GCSBB faced some
headwinds from the expansion of our card business — customer satisfaction in the card industry tends
Revenue
(in billions, fully taxable-equivalent basis)
Net Income
(in billions)
’05 ’06 ’07
$58.0
$73.8
$68.1
’05 ’06 ’07
$16.5
$21.1
$15.0