The Bank of Italy was founded in San Francisco, California, USA, in 1904 by Amadeo Giannini. It grew by a branch banking strategy to become the Bank of America, the world's largest commercial bank with 493 branches in California and assets of $5 billion in 1945.
The bank was established to serve working class citizens of the area, especially Italian Americans living in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood. The bank survived the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906 and was one of the first to offer loans to businesses to help rebuild the city.
The Bank of Italy building, which later became a National Historic Landmark, was opened in 1908. Giannini had his office space in an open area on the first floor. In 1909, the bank began opening branches in other cities and had 24 branches by 1918, at which time it was the first state-wide branch banking system.
The Bank of Italy merged with the smaller Bank of America, Los Angeles in the 1928. In 1930, Giannini changed the name "Bank of Italy" to "Bank of America." As Chairman of the new, larger Bank of America, Giannini expanded the bank throughout his tenure, which ended with his death in 1949.
Amadeo Giannini and the "Bank of Italy" were also the basis for the classic 1932 Frank Capra movie American Madness which was an original screenplay titled Faith by Robert Riskin.
Bank of America merged with NationsBank of Charlotte, North Carolina in 1998. While NationsBank was the nominal survivor, the merged bank took the Bank of America name and operates under the original charter for Bank of Italy.
Famous quotes containing the words bank and/or italy:
“I have passed down the river before sunrise on a summer morning, between fields of lilies still shut in sleep; and when, at length, the flakes of sunlight from over the bank fell on the surface of the water, whole fields of white blossoms seemed to flash open before me, as I floated along, like the unfolding of a banner, so sensible is this flower to the influence of the sun’s rays.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Uncle Matthew’s four years in France and Italy between 1914 and 1918 had given him no great opinion of foreigners. “Frogs,” he would say, “are slightly better than Huns or Wops, but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.””
—Nancy Mitford (1904–1973)