The Bank of America Corporation (Bank of America; often abbreviated BAC or BofA) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered at the Bank of America Corporate Centre in Charlotte, North Carolina, with investment banking and auxiliary headquarters in Manhattan. The bank was founded by the merger of NationsBank and Bank of America in 1998 CE. It is the second-largest banking institution in the United States and the second-largest bank in the world by market capitalization, both after JPMorgan Chase. Bank of America is one of the Big Four banking institutions of the United States and one of eight systemically important financial institutions in the United States. It serves about 10 percent of all American bank deposits, in direct competition with JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo. Its primary financial services revolve around commercial banking, wealth management, and investment banking. Through mergers, the oldest branch of the Bank of America franchise can be traced to 1784 CE, when Massachusetts Bank was chartered, the first federally chartered joint-stock owned bank in the United States. Another branch of its history goes back to the American-based Bank of Italy, founded by Amadeo Pietro Giannini in 1904 CE, which provided various banking options to Italian immigrants who faced service discrimination Headquartered in San Francisco, California, Giannini acquired Banca d'America e d'Italia, in 1922 CE and eventually did business as Bank of America.
