Bank of America: Playing the Long Game Through Responsible Growth

When Brian Moynihan became CEO of Bank of America on January 1, 2010, both the economy and the bank were struggling in the wake of the Great Recession. Across the industry, high-risk lending had contributed to a financial crisis that decimated the financial health of communities globally, fostering distrust in major financial institutions.

In the year prior to Moynihan’s appointment, Bank of America’s stock price dipped as low as $2.07 per share. Meanwhile, Bank of America customers were defaulting on loans at record highs. These formidable challenges required Bank of America to take swift and strategic action to stabilize the business and mitigate harm to consumers.

Guided by the belief that the bank’s long-term success required leaders to consider its impact on consumers, Bank of America committed to a new purpose: “Help make financial lives better through the power of every connection.” Bank of America’s new purpose was not just a simple marketing rebrand, but rather the guiding tenet behind a larger enterprise shift focused on recognizing financial health outcomes as a value driver.

By 2014, Bank of America adopted the phrase “Responsible Growth” to describe four principles:

Over the last decade, Bank of America has partnered with the Financial Health Network to carry out its commitment to responsible growth – driving meaningful results for the business and the long-term financial health of its customers. 

To execute on Bank of America’s Responsible Growth strategy, Moynihan established a leadership team within the consumer bank, giving decision-making power to senior leaders with experience working in the community affairs and philanthropic foundation teams. The team looked to create an internal culture that recognized financial health outcomes as a value driver. They believed that designing financial solutions to ensure positive client experiences would drive deeper long-term engagement, while also lowering operational costs. 

The bank focused on three actions: 

• • Leveraging continuous client feedback to inform the delivery of high-quality financial services
  • Training staff in alignment with the bank’s focus on client-centered performance indicators
  • Defining performance based on customer-focused measures, like satisfaction and attrition rates, rather than solely on product measures

Elevating Customer Voices 

In 2017, the bank launched a fully integrated customer feedback program called Voices. Voices collects millions of customer responses from in-person, digital, and phone interactions across business lines, which the bank leverages to quality financial solutions and improve operational efficiency. Leadership meets monthly to understand performance gaps driving low customer satisfaction scores and identify new solutions that can improve customer experiences, deepen engagement, and encourage loyalty. 

Bank of America also equipped client-facing staff with resources, training, and support to actively listen and resolve client issues. Tools like Voices help staff identify clients who require issue resolution and ensure positive experiences with the bank. 

Better Banking in Underserved Communities

Close customer listening revealed that clients who visited the nearly one-third of branches located in low- and moderate-income (LMI) neighborhoods needed targeted solutions to support their financial health, like help managing day-to-day finances and improving credit. As a result, Bank of America began to reimagine those locations, from refreshing the physical space to enhancing staff training. 

Through this community-centered approach, the bank focused on connecting LMI communities to the appropriate products and services for their financial needs, providing local hiring opportunities and career development, and delivering capital through Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and local partnerships. This approach allowed the bank to build trusted relationships by serving as a connection point to help these communities access the resources and guidance they needed.

Simple, Affordable, Transparent Products

Seeing the intensifying demand among consumers for simple, affordable, and transparent products following the 2008 financial crisis, Bank of America focused on streamlining its consumer business with a core set of products to support clients’ financial lives. Bank of America’s approach to overdraft services serves as a prime example of this idea in action.

In 2010, Bank of America eliminated overdraft fees on debit card transactions at point of sale – becoming the only major bank at the time to go further than the new regulatory requirement., While bank leaders knew the move would reduce revenue in the short term, they believed it would help Bank of America build trust with clients in the long term. 

Since then, the bank has introduced a variety of solutions that seek to address the conditions that create short-term liquidity constraints and can lead consumers to overdraft. They include SafeBalance Banking® , a low-cost checking account that has no overdraft fees; Balance Assist®, an affordable small-dollar personal loan; and Balance Connect ® , which helps clients manage their funds across deposit accounts. Bank of America has also invested in technology solutions that deepen customer engagement, empower consumers to manage their personal finances, and drive down costs for the bank. In addition, the bank continues to lead the way on overdraft reform, implementing changes that reduced its overdraft fee revenue by 90% between 2009 and 2022.

Bank of America’s commitment to listen to and deliver for customers has yielded positive results, simultaneously increasing revenue and reducing costs. Meanwhile, the bank continues to create efficiencies by enhancing digital automation and implementing a customer-centered approach to banking.

For more than a decade, the Financial Health Network has worked closely with Bank of America to advance its responsible growth strategy. Some of our collaborative efforts have included: 

• • Connecting Bank of America to resources, expertise, and partnerships as a Financial Health Network Member to accelerate its progress. 
  • Supporting Bank of America as it obtained J.D. Power’s financial health support certification, a program J.D. Power developed in partnership with the Financial Health Network.

In 2024, CEO Brian Moynihan became the third recipient of Financial Health Network’s Visionary Award,  which recognizes individuals who have shown unparalleled leadership in building a more inclusive financial system. Moynihan received the award on stage at our annual EMERGE Financial Health conference, thanking our organization for honoring him and his “tremendous team” for their work.    

To dive deeper into Bank of America’s financial health commitment, read the full case study.