March 23, 2026 By Brian Moynihan, Chair of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Bank of America sponsored the recent Ken Burns documentary, “The American Revolution,” a careful retelling of the story of the Revolutionary War that led to America’s founding as an independent nation. Celebrating America’s position as the largest, most successful economy in the world and now, a 250-year democracy, causes me to reflect on our company’s path to today, which follows the path of America’s success.
Today, our Charlotte, N.C.-headquartered company is the company, your company. That entity developed from many mergers and acquisitions through the years, including one in 1998 that resulted in our current name. We are made up of literally thousands of companies, merged into our current company or its predecessors across 240 years of history. Each of those companies had its own proud history when it joined Bank of America. In our company, we refer to “predecessor” or “legacy” companies to delineate those many wonderful tributaries that give rise to the great river that Bank of America is today.
Before we get to the United States, one could ask how Bank of America became so active around the world. We now serve 90 global markets. Our global expansion began many years ago as America’s reach and influence expanded. We grew by helping America’s entrepreneurs and business owners as they pursued their global ambitions. We followed our government when it needed us to open new markets or rebuild after global conflicts.
A few examples:
In each of these, and many more cities around the world (throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, etc.), we entered countries abroad to help America’s companies and government be successful. Economies and trade were expanding, and American capitalism was helping drive that growth. And Bank of America was there.
Nowhere was our role more intertwined with the growth and development of a nation than here in America. America was, and is, an idea, expressed by our Founding Fathers. That idea was a convening thought: it was not born of a single group of people, a single geography, a single inheritance of leadership (as in a monarchy) or of a structure (landed gentry). Our country was born, as we all learned in school, of the ideas of freedom of speech, religion, press and, importantly, it was born of meritocracy. No longer would title or birth order guarantee position. Popular democratic elections would define representation. Work, entrepreneurship, academic pursuit, innovation, physical might, risk-taking—all or any of those would define your success. These were radical ideas at the time. Of course, at times we fell short of those ideals—the issues of slavery, the rights of indigenous people, the lack of voting for women—and those were addressed and squared with the ideas of the founders. As I write this letter over the Presidents’ Day weekend, I think of Abraham Lincoln’s reminder on the eve of the Civil War that our Constitution was established, as stated in its preamble, “to form a more perfect Union.” America, since its beginning, has been an idea that we continue to perfect—it is a land where any individual has the opportunity to do and be, what, and who, they choose.
The Revolutionary War was fought with cobbled-together resources by volunteers, militia and conscripts, freed slaves and indigenous people. The new aspiring nation formed alliances with foreign governments. It was a civil war, as colonists fought for the crown as loyalists. But in the end the war was over, and America was liberated from British rule. Yes, liberated, but at the same time, cut off from its mother country, which had provided capital and know-how and infrastructure for the colonies’ pre-war success. And what did America need? Its businesses, its farmers, its municipalities and states needed capital to invest to rebuild and to grow our new country.
Bank of America’s oldest legacy institution, The Massachusetts Bank, was formed in 1784, one year after the Treaty of Paris ended the war. The following quote from the original proposal for the capitalization of the bank stands the test of time:
Taught by the experience of many Nations that well regulated Banks are highly useful to Society, as they promote Punctuality in the Performance of Contracts, increase the Medium of Trade, facilitate the Payment of taxes, prevent the Exportation of, and furnish a safe Deposit for Cash, and in the way of Discount, render easy and expeditious the anticipation of Funds at the Expense only of common Interest; whilst by the same Means they advance the Interest of the Proprietors.
The bank formed and its customers and depositors were familiar names like Hancock. They and others deposited their excess capital in the bank and your company lent that money to those who needed it to help them grow and build a new nation. From our country’s earliest days, we supported those communities. We have supported the development of American capitalism. We did what a bank does—help its customers and clients grow.
As America expanded, it needed more sources of capital in every community to grow, to prosper, to flourish. Bank of America’s legacy banks formed in communities around the new country, and were there every step of the way as those communities filled out our nation.
Our New England franchise, including Rhode Island in 1791, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, all formed early on. New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey trace back to early days of our country. Our North Carolina company (again the surviving company of all the legacy banks) was formed to help provide local financing to the expanding southern industrial economy more than 150 years ago. Funds from afar were not sufficient or readily available and local banks formed to help needed factories get built in their communities. Throughout South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, our company similarly funded the change from agrarian society to industrial society. Our Washington, D.C.-based company grew quickly as the federal government expanded. Our Texas company helped the region’s resource boom get funded. In St. Louis, Chicago, Little Rock and Oklahoma City, our legacy banks helped fund the growth of the Midwest and West as America expanded. We helped river trade and the flow of goods. Similarly, as the West grew, the Pacific Northwest bank started. And generations of school children learned the story of A.P. Giannini and his Bank of Italy—later changed to Bank of America (our name today)—and the support we gave to the victims of the great San Francisco earthquake and fires of 1906.
Companies that are now Bank of America provided funding for the Erie Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge and the American government’s requirements for the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, as well as many other national priorities. We helped form the national currency. As the needs of capital for our clients exceeded the banks’ capacity, Merrill Lynch formed to raise capital. U.S. Trust formed to develop access to investing and pioneered trust banking more than 170 years ago. We even funded some of America’s great cultural touchpoints, including the film “Gone with the Wind” and Disneyland!
Most importantly, we have helped local citizens grow their local economies.
What is important for your company is not where our companies that formed today’s Bank of America started, but why they started. They sprang up through the agreements of business leaders in local communities to help those communities and our country grow and prosper. We operate the same way today: By taking the excess funds deposited with the bank for safekeeping and making loans to help the entrepreneurs in our communities grow.
Whether it was private citizens, governments or companies of every size, in communities across our growing country, Bank of America was there to help capitalism flourish. We were there to help foster the interdependent relationship between capitalism and democracy. For the 250 years of the American idea in action, the activities of countless individuals, families, farmers and other small businesses, large institutions, governments at every level, the opportunities provided by capitalism—a financial return on labor through wages, and on capital and investments, interest on your idle funds, facilitating investments in bonds to build infrastructure, making loans to entrepreneurs to grow their businesses—helped build our country we have today.
Opportunity and democracy go together. There have been setbacks and obstacles at times. It is important that we always strive to ensure equal access to those opportunities for everyone. America’s success, and the many ways America has helped drive the economic success of the world, is demonstrative proof of the need for both capitalism and democracy. America’s growth and success were not assured when independence was declared in 1776, and were still not assured when the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war and recognized American independence, was signed in 1783. But succeed America did, and the intertwined ideas of democracy and capitalism have been the drivers.
Your company has been there from the start, and we have followed and helped America’s development around the world. We continued to do so in 2025. You can see this demonstrated throughout this Annual Report.
My more than 213,000 teammates and I are mindful of the very important role we play to continue to deliver on the promise of helping America and capitalism thrive. Today we do that in 97 distinctly organized local markets across America. We do it in the 90 global markets where we operate around the world, helping our great American companies and America be successful. We are proud of that service to our clients and customers, to our communities, to our shareholders and to our country. We are proud to have provided capital to help America realize the idea that America is and remains. We will be proud to help America succeed in the future.
My more than 213,000 teammates are ready.
So America, what would you like the power to do?
Brian Moynihan
Read the letter in the 2025 Annual Report pages 12-15 (PDF).
Bank of America sponsored the recent Ken Burns documentary, “The American Revolution,” a careful retelling of the story of the Revolutionary War that led to America’s founding as an independent nation. Celebrating America’s position as the largest, most successful economy in the world and now, a 250-year democracy, causes me to reflect on our company’s path to today, which follows the path of America’s success.
Today, our Charlotte, N.C.-headquartered company is the company, your company. That entity developed from many mergers and acquisitions through the years, including one in 1998 that resulted in our current name. We are made up of literally thousands of companies, merged into our current company or its predecessors across 240 years of history. Each of those companies had its own proud history when it joined Bank of America. In our company, we refer to “predecessor” or “legacy” companies to delineate those many wonderful tributaries that give rise to the great river that Bank of America is today.
Before we get to the United States, one could ask how Bank of America became so active around the world. We now serve 90 global markets. Our global expansion began many years ago as America’s reach and influence expanded. We grew by helping America’s entrepreneurs and business owners as they pursued their global ambitions. We followed our government when it needed us to open new markets or rebuild after global conflicts.
A few examples:
In each of these, and many more cities around the world (throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, etc.), we entered countries abroad to help America’s companies and government be successful. Economies and trade were expanding, and American capitalism was helping drive that growth. And Bank of America was there.
Nowhere was our role more intertwined with the growth and development of a nation than here in America. America was, and is, an idea, expressed by our Founding Fathers. That idea was a convening thought: it was not born of a single group of people, a single geography, a single inheritance of leadership (as in a monarchy) or of a structure (landed gentry). Our country was born, as we all learned in school, of the ideas of freedom of speech, religion, press and, importantly, it was born of meritocracy. No longer would title or birth order guarantee position. Popular democratic elections would define representation. Work, entrepreneurship, academic pursuit, innovation, physical might, risk-taking—all or any of those would define your success. These were radical ideas at the time. Of course, at times we fell short of those ideals—the issues of slavery, the rights of indigenous people, the lack of voting for women—and those were addressed and squared with the ideas of the founders. As I write this letter over the Presidents’ Day weekend, I think of Abraham Lincoln’s reminder on the eve of the Civil War that our Constitution was established, as stated in its preamble, “to form a more perfect Union.” America, since its beginning, has been an idea that we continue to perfect—it is a land where any individual has the opportunity to do and be, what, and who, they choose.
The Revolutionary War was fought with cobbled-together resources by volunteers, militia and conscripts, freed slaves and indigenous people. The new aspiring nation formed alliances with foreign governments. It was a civil war, as colonists fought for the crown as loyalists. But in the end the war was over, and America was liberated from British rule. Yes, liberated, but at the same time, cut off from its mother country, which had provided capital and know-how and infrastructure for the colonies’ pre-war success. And what did America need? Its businesses, its farmers, its municipalities and states needed capital to invest to rebuild and to grow our new country.
Bank of America’s oldest legacy institution, The Massachusetts Bank, was formed in 1784, one year after the Treaty of Paris ended the war. The following quote from the original proposal for the capitalization of the bank stands the test of time:
Taught by the experience of many Nations that well regulated Banks are highly useful to Society, as they promote Punctuality in the Performance of Contracts, increase the Medium of Trade, facilitate the Payment of taxes, prevent the Exportation of, and furnish a safe Deposit for Cash, and in the way of Discount, render easy and expeditious the anticipation of Funds at the Expense only of common Interest; whilst by the same Means they advance the Interest of the Proprietors.
The bank formed and its customers and depositors were familiar names like Hancock. They and others deposited their excess capital in the bank and your company lent that money to those who needed it to help them grow and build a new nation. From our country’s earliest days, we supported those communities. We have supported the development of American capitalism. We did what a bank does—help its customers and clients grow.
As America expanded, it needed more sources of capital in every community to grow, to prosper, to flourish. Bank of America’s legacy banks formed in communities around the new country, and were there every step of the way as those communities filled out our nation.
Our New England franchise, including Rhode Island in 1791, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine, all formed early on. New York, Philadelphia and New Jersey trace back to early days of our country. Our North Carolina company (again the surviving company of all the legacy banks) was formed to help provide local financing to the expanding southern industrial economy more than 150 years ago. Funds from afar were not sufficient or readily available and local banks formed to help needed factories get built in their communities. Throughout South Carolina, Florida and Georgia, our company similarly funded the change from agrarian society to industrial society. Our Washington, D.C.-based company grew quickly as the federal government expanded. Our Texas company helped the region’s resource boom get funded. In St. Louis, Chicago, Little Rock and Oklahoma City, our legacy banks helped fund the growth of the Midwest and West as America expanded. We helped river trade and the flow of goods. Similarly, as the West grew, the Pacific Northwest bank started. And generations of school children learned the story of A.P. Giannini and his Bank of Italy—later changed to Bank of America (our name today)—and the support we gave to the victims of the great San Francisco earthquake and fires of 1906.
Companies that are now Bank of America provided funding for the Erie Canal, the Golden Gate Bridge and the American government’s requirements for the War of 1812, World War I and World War II, as well as many other national priorities. We helped form the national currency. As the needs of capital for our clients exceeded the banks’ capacity, Merrill Lynch formed to raise capital. U.S. Trust formed to develop access to investing and pioneered trust banking more than 170 years ago. We even funded some of America’s great cultural touchpoints, including the film “Gone with the Wind” and Disneyland!
Most importantly, we have helped local citizens grow their local economies.
What is important for your company is not where our companies that formed today’s Bank of America started, but why they started. They sprang up through the agreements of business leaders in local communities to help those communities and our country grow and prosper. We operate the same way today: By taking the excess funds deposited with the bank for safekeeping and making loans to help the entrepreneurs in our communities grow.
Whether it was private citizens, governments or companies of every size, in communities across our growing country, Bank of America was there to help capitalism flourish. We were there to help foster the interdependent relationship between capitalism and democracy. For the 250 years of the American idea in action, the activities of countless individuals, families, farmers and other small businesses, large institutions, governments at every level, the opportunities provided by capitalism—a financial return on labor through wages, and on capital and investments, interest on your idle funds, facilitating investments in bonds to build infrastructure, making loans to entrepreneurs to grow their businesses—helped build our country we have today.
Opportunity and democracy go together. There have been setbacks and obstacles at times. It is important that we always strive to ensure equal access to those opportunities for everyone. America’s success, and the many ways America has helped drive the economic success of the world, is demonstrative proof of the need for both capitalism and democracy. America’s growth and success were not assured when independence was declared in 1776, and were still not assured when the Treaty of Paris, which ended the war and recognized American independence, was signed in 1783. But succeed America did, and the intertwined ideas of democracy and capitalism have been the drivers.
Your company has been there from the start, and we have followed and helped America’s development around the world. We continued to do so in 2025. You can see this demonstrated throughout this Annual Report.
My more than 213,000 teammates and I are mindful of the very important role we play to continue to deliver on the promise of helping America and capitalism thrive. Today we do that in 97 distinctly organized local markets across America. We do it in the 90 global markets where we operate around the world, helping our great American companies and America be successful. We are proud of that service to our clients and customers, to our communities, to our shareholders and to our country. We are proud to have provided capital to help America realize the idea that America is and remains. We will be proud to help America succeed in the future.
My more than 213,000 teammates are ready.
So America, what would you like the power to do?
Brian Moynihan
Read the letter in the 2025 Annual Report pages 12-15 (PDF).
1784 - Establish The Massachusetts Bank, our earliest legacy institution at the second privately owned commercial bank in the U.S., helping expand access to global trade
1814 - Help finance the reconstruction of Washington, D.C., contributing to national recovery during and after the War of 1812
1817 - Help finance New York’s Erie Canal and early railroad development, connecting Midwest communities with East Coast markets and fueling economic growth
1847 - Expand westward through St. Louis, Chicago, Little Rock, Ark., and Oklahoma City to support emerging frontier communities and expansion
1863 - Lead early adoption of the unified U.S. currency created by the National Currency Act, strengthening trust and consistency in the national finance system
1932 - Finance construction of the Golden Gate Bridge, transforming regional economic development and increasing mobility for millions of people
1940 - Expand financial services to support national wartime efforts during World War II
1947 - Open Japan’s first post-war U.S. bank office, helping local industries rebuild and reconnect to global markets
1947 - Begin operations in Brazil to strengthen trade and support growing economic partnerships across the Americas
1952 - Enter India to help advance national economic development and modernization
1874 - North Carolina holding company forms that becomes the foundation for our company
1914 - Help stabilize the U.S. economy during World War I and later expand abroad, opening in the United Kingdom in 1931 as the U.S. became a global creditor
1914 - Found Charles E. Merrill & Co. in New York City, helping more Americans participate in the growing world of investing
1917 - Expand operations in Argentina to support the wool trade, fueling American industrial growth
1930 - Bank of Italy, founded in San Francisco in 1904, adopts Bank of America name, reflecting our focus on serving individuals, families and businesses across the country
1953 - Open operations in France to support Europe’s ongoing post-war reconstruction following the success of the Marshall Plan
1955 - Finance the construction of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., which opens with a fully functioning Bank of America financial center on Main Street
1958 - Introduce BankAmericard, expanding financial inclusion by giving consumers a new, secure way to pay for goods and services and manage credit
1972 - Establish Middle East headquarters in the newly formed United Arab Emirates to foster regional development
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