In 1904, Amadeo Giannini, the son of Italian immigrants, established the Bank of Italy in San Francisco, California. Only two years after the bank opened, San Francisco was devastated by the 1906 earthquake. Giannini made loans to many of the people affected by the disaster in order to help them rebuild. As a result, he developed a positive reputation in the area.

In 1928, Giannini and Orra E. Monnette, founder of the Bank of America Los Angeles, merged their banks and formed Bank of America. The men were co-chairs of the new financial entity.

After Bank of America became the largest California bank, Giannini began expanding into other areas of the United States and into other financial sections, such as insurance. Although these moves were successful, federal regulations prohibited both Bank of America from providing establishing banks outside of California and from being involved in other financial industries. Its non-banking subsidiaries separated to form Transamerica Corporation while its non-California based banks eventually became known as First Interstate Bancorp (these were purchased by Wells Fargo in 1993).

In the 1980's and 1990's, Bank of America was able to begin expanding again by buying and merging with other financial institutions, such as Seafirst Corporation (1983) and Security Pacific Corporation (1992). These acquisitions gave Bank of American locations throughout the western United States, including Idaho, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington. In 1994, Bank of America entered the Midwest by acquiring Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago.

In 1998, Bank of America merged with NationsBank, the largest commercial bank in the United States. The newly formed company, known as Bank of America Corporation, moved its headquarters to North Carolina and was headed by NationsBank management team. As a result of the merger, Bank of America Corporation had more than $570 billion in assets and 4,800 banking locations.

Bank of America Credit Cards

Bank of America launched its first credit card, known as the BankAmericard, in 1958. While this was the same year American Express began issuing its credit cards, the difference was that the BankAmericard was a revolving credit account. For ten years, Bank of America handled the card itself. Then, a group of banks which were issuing the card got to together to form a centralized processing network for the cards which would also give each of them more control over the BankAmericard. In 1970, this group was officially incorporated as National BankAmericard Inc (NBI). Six years later, BankAmericard became known as Visa.

Today, Visa is a leader in global credit card services. Visa cards are accepted by more than 24 million retailers and at 1 million ATMs in over 150 countries. Since 1958, more than 1.4 billion cards have been issues around the world.

Although still working as a credit card issuer, Bank of America did not have a major role in the credit card industry again until the 21st century. In 2004, they paid $1.4 billion for the National Processing Company, which is based in Kentucky. As a result of this purchase, Bank of America Corporation now processes one out of every six Visa and Mastercard transactions.

One year later, the company paid $35 billion to purchase MBNA which officially made Bank of America the largest issuer of credit cards in the United States. MBNA issued Visa, Mastercard, and American Express cards. After the purchase, Bank of America acquired 40 million active credit card accounts totaling $140 billion in consumer debt.

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