January 5,2007
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BoA is Biggest!
Now that MBNA and Bank of America have inked a merger agreement, BoA is officially the largest credit card issuer in the U.S. The ink is barely dry on the stockholder and regulation approvals of the merger, but BoA has already been declared tops in the credit card game, with some $61.5 billion in credit card assets. Now that's a lot of plastic!
The previous credit-card-giant-to-beat was Chase, which swelled to first place in 2004 with the well-publicized merger between Bank One and JP Morgan Chase. At that point, Citibank was tops. With the BoA deal, Chase bowed at second place, and Citibank fell to third.
BoA started up in the early years of the twentieth century as the Bank of Italy, under the headship of an Italian immigrant living in San Francisco. When Bank of America merged with Nation's Bank some time ago, it created the nation's first coast-to-coast financial institution. BoA cemented its spot among banking's top names by acquiring Fleet Bank of Boston in 2003.