Breaking the Bank: The Decline of Bank of America.

Economist (US), The, March, 1989

BREAKING THE BANK: THE DECLINE OF BANK OF AMERICA.

STARTED in 1904 in San Francisco as "the bank for the little fellow", Bank of America's history has the simple symmetry of a morality play. Its founder, the shrewd, occasionally sharp and always moralising Amadeo Peter Giannini, would sit in front of the counter at the bank's first office, gossiping with his customers. By 1945 this small-town strategy - followed in branches across California - had made Bank of America the world's biggest bank, ahead even of the Rockefellers' Chase manhattan.

A generation later Bank of America had become embarrassed by its roots. It too wanted to be a big, brash lender to companies rather than people. Its executives - led by its abrasive president from 1970 to 1981, Mr...

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