A unique ability to combine national scale and digital leadership with a local, human touch makes Bank of America stand out in the US’s voraciously competitive retail banking market. The result is that, although it has 70 million clients in the US, it continues to grow: adding 5.8 million new consumers in 2024 alone.
While almost 80% of Bank of America’s customers interact with the firm digitally, its physical network continues to spread throughout the country’s biggest banking markets.
Another crucial element of the growth and stability of Bank of America’s retail franchise is its rewards programme, covering banking, lending and investing. Now a decade old, the Preferred Rewards programme passed 11 million members in 2024, posting a 99% retention rate. Members benefit, for example, from fee waivers and credit card bonuses, as well as discounts on auto loans and mortgages.
“We want that programme to incentivise clients to have their full relationship with us,” says Holly O’Neill, president of consumer, retail and preferred. “We’re doing it to build loyalty with our client base.”
On the digital front, Zelle, the US sector’s person-to-person payments mechanism, now eclipses the rapidly decline practice of writing cheques, especially among Bank of America customers.
It also continues to invest in its customer chatbot, Erica. Since Erica’s 2018 launch, Bank of America’s data science team has already made tens of thousands of changes including tweaks, expansions and finetuning of natural language understanding, as well as cutting-edge technology integration. Its accuracy rate has consequently increased from around 65% at launch to 95% in early 2025. The chatbot recorded 676 million client interactions in 2024.
One other aspect that marks the firm out is the integration between its business, its online and physical presence
Among other new products and services, the bank’s retail franchise also moved forward last year, with a new family banking product that assists parents and guardians in their children’s financial education. That’s in addition to capturing the new generation by planting physical presences near higher education facilities, for example.
One other aspect that marks the firm out is the integration between its business, its online and physical presence, in what it calls its financial centres.
If a customer shows interest in a product in the financial centre, but wants to think about it, the banker can put it in the customer’s digital basket so they can go ahead when they are ready. Customers can also use the app or ask Erica to make an appointment at the local financial centre, rather than waiting in line.
“Our strategy is focused on the digital as well as physical space, with our financial centres, which are both critical to how we deliver for clients,” says O’Neill.
“We’ve heard from our clients that they want that physical location nearby. Digital capabilities, as well as human interactions – when clients walk into a financial centre or call one of our specialists on the phone – are very important parts of the experience, and we hear that directly from the clients themselves.”
