Citizens National Bank became Interfirst, then First Republic, and later NCNB. In 1992, the bank took the name NationsBank, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Subsequent acquisition soon made it the largest bank in the American south.
Bank of America was originally formed out of several small southern Californian banks in the early 1900s, but a more important predecessor was Amadio Giannini’s Bank of Italy, which acquired Bank of America and its name in 1929.
The combined company was headed by Amadio Giannini with Orra E. Monnette serving as co-Chair.
In October 1998, the merger of NationsBank and Bank of America created the nation’s first coast to coast bank, with $618 billion in assets.
While the deal was technically a purchase of BankAmerica Corporation by NationsBank, the deal was structured as merger with NationsBank renamed to Bank of America Corporation.
Bank of America is the second largest bank in the US by assets after Newsgroup.
The post 1998 group has made further acquisition, including MBNA in 2005 by which Bank of America became the country’s largest credit card user.
An even larger combination came in late 2003, when Bank of America announced it was entering into a $49 billion stock-for-stock merger agreement with FleetBoston Financial creating the second biggest bank in the United States. The merger completed in April 2004.
In 2008, Bank of America bought the investment firm Merrill Lynch, today it one of the three banking corporations control about one third of all the nations banking assets.
Bank of America
