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Financial institution of America CEO Brian Moynihan on Monday despatched a letter to shareholders together with the agency’s annual report that detailed the financial institution’s historical past and its position in America’s development because the nation prepares to rejoice the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.
Moynihan famous that Financial institution of America’s oldest legacy establishment, The Massachusetts Financial institution, was fashioned in 1784, only one 12 months after the Revolutionary Conflict concluded with the Treaty of Paris. The financial institution’s depositors helped the agency develop by lending cash to new and increasing companies that made up the early U.S. financial system.
“From our nation’s earliest days, we supported these communities. Now we have supported the event of American capitalism. We did what a financial institution does – assist its prospects and shoppers develop,” Moynihan wrote. “Financial institution of America’s legacy banks fashioned in communities across the nation, and had been there each step of the way in which as these communities crammed out our nation.”
Financial institution of America additionally traces its roots to franchises in New England that date again to the early days of the nation, as properly its North Carolina firm, which is the surviving firm of these legacy banks and was fashioned over 150 years in the past to assist finance the event of the area’s industries because the U.S. developed from an agrarian society to an industrial society.
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Financial institution of America CEO Brian Moynihan on Monday despatched a letter to shareholders together with the agency’s annual report. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Pictures)
“Funds from afar weren’t adequate or available and native banks fashioned to assist wanted factories get constructed of their communities,” Moynihan wrote in reference to banks established alongside the Jap Seaboard within the early years of America’s independence.
Banks within the nation’s capital grew together with the enlargement of the federal authorities, whereas the agency’s Texas-based firm helped fund the area’s useful resource increase and people situated within the Nice Plains spurred the financial development of the Midwest and West. It additionally opened a financial institution within the Pacific Northwest.
Round 1930, A.P. Giannini’s Financial institution of Italy – which helped help the reconstruction of San Francisco after the nice earthquake and fires of 1906 – bought a small agency referred to as The Financial institution of America, Los Angeles. After ultimately consolidating, Giannini modified the identify to Financial institution of America.
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Financial institution of America traces its firm historical past again to legacy banks established within the earliest days of American independence. (Michael Nagle/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures)
“Corporations that are actually Financial institution of America supplied funding for the Erie Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the American authorities’s necessities for the Conflict of 1812, World Conflict I and World Conflict II, in addition to many different nationwide priorities,” Moynihan wrote.
“Whether or not it was personal residents, governments or firms of each measurement, in communities throughout our rising nation, Financial institution of America was there to assist capitalism flourish. We had been there to assist foster the interdependent relationship between capitalism and democracy.”
“For the 250 years of the American thought in motion, the actions of numerous people, households, farmers and different small companies, massive establishments, governments at each stage, the alternatives supplied by capitalism – a monetary return on labor by wages, and on capital and investments, curiosity in your idle funds, facilitating investments in bonds to construct infrastructure, making loans to entrepreneurs to develop their companies – helped construct our nation now we have at present,” he defined.
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The Golden Gate Bridge was constructed partially with funds from Financial institution of America, Moynihan famous. (iStock)
The letter additionally mentioned how Financial institution of America grew its presence world wide by serving to U.S. companies pursue international ambitions in addition to offering monetary companies on the federal authorities’s request to facilitate entry to new markets or assist rebuild within the wake of conflicts.
Among the many examples cited had been the financial institution opening for enterprise in Argentina in 1917 to help American firms engaged within the wool commerce, in addition to the institution of operations in Nice Britain in 1931 because the U.S. emerged as a creditor nation after World Conflict I.
Within the aftermath of World Conflict II, Financial institution of America grew to become the primary financial institution to open for enterprise in Japan on the request of the U.S. occupation authorities to supply loans to transport firms to restart Japan’s postwar financial system.

Financial institution of America CEO Brian Moynihan’s letter defined how the agency and its legacy establishments helped the U.S. financial system at dwelling and overseas for the reason that nation’s founding. (John Lamparski/Getty Pictures)
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Financial institution of America opened in France in 1953 to help the post-World Conflict II reconstruction of Europe and construct on the success of the U.S. authorities’s post-war Marshall Plan. It additionally opened a Center East headquarters in 1972 when it entered the newly fashioned United Arab Emirates to help U.S. firms growing the area’s assets.

