Bank Of America

Service sector shrinks for 4th straight month WASHINGTON: The nation's service sector shrank for the fourth straight month in January, a trade group said yesterday, but at a slower pace than in the previous month. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade association of purchasing executives, said its service sector index rose to 42.9 last month, from December's downwardly revised reading of 40.1. The January reading was above analysts' expectations of 39, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

ATLANTA -- Nothing gets consumers riled up and griping about their banks more than fees. Get ready to gripe some more. Wachovia has joined a number of other financial institutions, including Bank of America and SunTrust Banks, who charge their customers a monthly fee to download account information through their Quicken or Microsoft Money personal money management software. "This helps us offset some of the costs to our business for managing the access to the account information through the account software," said David Oliver, a Wachovia Corp.

WASHINGTON -- Big-name investment banks are taking a financial beating this year, leaving many Americans to ask: Just how did all these Wall Street bankers in their $5,000 John Lobb shoes manage to step in you-know-what? The answer is simple: They made the same mistakes as the rest of us, just with more zeros attached to them and bigger consequences for the U.S. economy, if not for their own $625 John Lobb wallets. Those mistakes are why the heads of Merrill Lynch & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have been ousted in recent weeks, why household names such as Bank of America Corp.

When Bank of America Corp. announced its $35 billion acquisition of MBNA Corp. in summer 2005, many people questioned whether it would work. MBNA, a stand-alone credit-card giant that started in Baltimore as part of MNC Financial Inc., took pride in its fast-paced and entrepreneurial spirit, its freewheeling spending and a secretive corporate culture. Executives roamed its opulent headquarters in Wilmington, Del., where the phrase, "Think of yourself as a customer," was spelled out in small gold capital letters on both sides of at least 1,700 doorways.

Baltimore is one of 15 cities that will participate in a $3 billion mortgage program funded by the Bank of America to allow low- to moderate-income borrowers to buy a house with no down payment, no application fee and no closing costs.The program will be operated by the Neighborhood Assistance Corp. of America, a Boston-based affordable housing advocacy group that provides housing services, such as buyer education and individual counseling, for free.Mortgages will have a fixed interest rate, which is currently at 7.5 percent.

NationsBank Corp. plans to spend $9 million over the next month to change the name on everything from its Maryland branches and automated telling machines to stationery and business cards.The company is dumping the NationsBank name for Bank of America, with which it merged nearly a year ago.By Aug. 30, 205 branches and 516 ATMs in Maryland will have been shorn of the NationsBank name for Bank of America as part of a sweeping conversion in the mid-Atlantic region.Included in the conversion are 111 branches and 318 ATMs in the Baltimore area.

NationsBank Corp. spent hundreds of millions of dollars building the NationsBank brand.Then scrapped it.Now Bank of America, the product of NationsBank's Sept. 30 merger with BankAmerica, is launching what some experts believe may be the largest complete brand change in recent history. It is costing several hundred million dollars and includes details so small, down to business cards, that the bank says it can't quantify it."If we think about what a brand is, the name and logo are just the representation of the brand, the limited expression of something much broader and deeper," said Bank of America marketing executive Amy Brinkley.

NEW YORK -- U.S. stocks rose with bonds as a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan bolstered confidence that interest rates won't need to rise much to head off inflation.Banks including Citigroup Inc. and software shares such as Oracle Corp. led the gains."Markets are likely to easily tolerate" a Fed rate increase, Goldman Sachs & Co. strategist Abby Joseph Cohen said in a note to clients.The Dow Jones industrial average rose for a fourth day, climbing 56.68 to 10,841.63; the Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 9.49 to 1,339.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE officers of banks are expected to be cheerleaders for just about any profitable proposition thrown in their path.But Hugh McColl, whose Bank of America is the nation's largest financier of commercial and residential real estate, didn't sound quite that way in a recent talk before the International Council of Shopping Centers in Charlotte, N.C.Storm clouds are gathering over America's communities, warned Mr. McColl, the North Carolinian who...

The FBI is investigating a daytime armed robbery at a bank in Glen Burnie in which two suspects got away -- but without a dime to show for the effort.They dropped the cash while running out of the bank, said county police. It was returned to the bank.The robbery occurred Wednesday at the former NationsBank branch at Glen Burnie Mall in the 6700 block of Ritchie Highway.Police said that two men, one carrying a silver handgun and the other a blue steel handgun, entered the bank at 9: 25 a.m.One gunman ordered customers to sit on the floor.

Ravens post, quickly remove tweet on 'Ravenized' plane The Baltimore Ravens posted Wednesday and then took down a message on Twitter about a "Ravenized" AirTran Airways plane to be put on the airline's schedule out of BWI Marshall Airport. Although the post on the micro-blogging site was deleted, the Twitter message was re-tweeted at least five times. AirTran spokesman Christopher White said the airline would not confirm the tweet. The Ravens declined to comment. AirTran already has a partnership with Atlanta's NFL team that includes a Falcons-themed plane.

WASHINGTON - -A federal judge in New York Monday rejected a $33 million settlement between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Bank of America, throwing into doubt the future of one of the government's chief cases against a firm charged with wrongdoing in the financial crisis. Using biting language, Judge Jed Rakoff accused the SEC, Wall Street's top regulator, of trying to nab a quick victory against a big bank while concealing the facts of the wrongdoing the agency alleges. He attacked Bank of America's top executives for allegedly trying to protect themselves at the expense of the company's shareholders.

Layoffs likely after GM fails to find enough early retirees DETROIT - About 6,000 General Motors Co. blue-collar workers have taken the latest round of early retirement and buyout offers, but it fell short of the company's goal, meaning more layoffs are likely. GM has about 54,000 factory workers and wants to end the year with 40,500, a cut of about 13,500. Monday's report means that about 7,500 too few workers took the offers, setting the stage for more layoffs. It was not immediately known how many workers from the GM transmission plant in White Marsh took the buyout.

Edward Gerard Novak, a retired banker who had served as the chairman of the boards of the Baltimore Museum of Industry and the Maryland Food Bank, died Sunday of prostate cancer at University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 55 and lived in Baldwin. Mr. Novak, the son of a Westinghouse Electric Corp. worker and a homemaker, was born in Baltimore and spent his early years in Violetville. In the 1960s, he moved with his family to Eldersburg and graduated in 1973 from South Carroll High School.

Ten of the nation's 19 largest banks must raise a total of $74.6 billion to withstand a worse-than-expected economic downturn, according to results of government "stress tests" released Thursday. Bank of America Corp. led the way with a need for $33.9 billion in new capital, followed by Wells Fargo & Co. with $13.7 billion, GMAC with $11.5 billion, Citigroup Inc. with $5.5 billion and Morgan Stanley with $1.8 billion. But nine of the banks have no need to raise new money, and federal officials emphasized that all the banks have enough to handle current economic conditions.

The choice that regulators gave Bank of America chief Kenneth Lewis could not have been clearer: Harm your shareholders or lose your job. Lewis chose to keep his job. Rarely does the divide between corporate managers and the owners they're supposed to represent become so obvious. Lewis' sworn testimony, made available this week, shows he reversed his decision to scrap a disastrous merger with Merrill Lynch after then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson threatened to fire him if the bank refused the deal.

Glen Burnie Bancorp buys back 9% of stock Glen Burnie Bancorp announced yesterday that it spent nearly $2.55 million to buy back more than 9 percent of its stock from a single shareholder. The parent of the Bank of Glen Burnie agreed to pay $9.30 for each of the 274,179 shares of common stock owned by former director Eugene P. Nepa. The company is authorized by its board to spend up to another $953,493 to buy back stock, as part of a repurchase program that earlier acquired 55,300 shares.

NEW YORK - Good news from a bank - finally - sent the stock market to its best gain this year. The Dow Jones industrial average soared almost 400 points after Citigroup Inc.'s chief executive said the troubled banking company was profitable through the first two months of this year and is having its best quarter since the third quarter of 2007. "I am most encouraged with the strength of our business so far in 2009," Vikram Pandit, Citigroup's CEO, wrote in a memo to employees. That raised hope that the financial sector could be nearing a bottom, and it unleashed a broad rally among financial stocks.

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama will release the details of his foreclosure prevention plan Wednesday, the White House announced yesterday, as several large banks pledged to temporarily stop foreclosures until the program is in place. Obama will make the eagerly awaited announcement from Arizona, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters yesterday afternoon. That schedule came as J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup announced temporary moratoriums on foreclosures at the urging of a key House member.

Service sector shrinks for 4th straight month WASHINGTON: The nation's service sector shrank for the fourth straight month in January, a trade group said yesterday, but at a slower pace than in the previous month. The Institute for Supply Management, a trade association of purchasing executives, said its service sector index rose to 42.9 last month, from December's downwardly revised reading of 40.1. The January reading was above analysts' expectations of 39, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.