Sale:: Bank of America was once Bank of Italy?

Friday, March 13, 2026

Bank of America was once Bank of Italy?


	March 13, 2026

Original photo by Greg Balfour Evans/ Alamy Stock Photo

The original name of the Bank of America was 'Bank of Italy.'

Born to Italian immigrants in San Jose, California, in 1870, A.P. Giannini became a successful produce merchant. He married into a prominent San Francisco family, through which he joined the board of the Columbus Savings & Loan bank. However, the headstrong newcomer clashed with other board members over the practice of lending money solely to affluent clients, and in October 1904, Giannini established his Bank of Italy in a saloon across the street from Columbus Savings & Loan.

Thanks to the aggressive courtship of "the little fellow," i.e., working-class immigrants ignored by other banks, Bank of Italy accrued more than $700,000 in deposits in its first year of business. And when a massive earthquake destroyed much of San Francisco in April 1906, Giannini was shrewd enough to steer his cash to safety from the looting masses. Setting up a makeshift bank on a North Beach wharf, Giannini helped rebuild the community by extending loans on handshake deals. He continued to do so even after the Panic of 1907 threatened to undermine financial progress. By the end of the decade, the astute businessman began buying other banks en route to founding the country's first statewide banking system. In 1928, he orchestrated a merger between the Bank of Italy and the smaller Bank of America Los Angeles.

Giannini was well prepared to weather the storm that followed the stock market crash of 1929, and he responded by relaunching his enterprise as the Bank of America National Trust and Savings Association in 1930. By the time he died in 1949, Bank of America counted more than 500 branches and $6 billion in assets — the bank of "the little fellow" having clearly outgrown its roots to stand as the world's then-largest bank.

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		Numbers Don't Lie

National bank charter number of the Bank of Italy/Bank of America

13044

Bank of America employees as of February 2026

213,200

Deposits (in USD) in U.S. banks as of February 2026

18.77 trillion

Career home runs hit by baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks

512

The Italian bank Credito Emiliano accepts cheese as collateral for loans.

Although it sounds like something from an outdated comedy with cringey stereotypes and bad accents, Credito Emiliano has sound business reasons for welcoming cheese as part of its loan operations. Situated in a region filled with Parmigiano-Reggiano farms, the bank understands that the "King of Cheeses" needs a full 18 to 36 months to properly age, forcing its producers to wait for the opportunity to turn a profit. Willing to be patient alongside its clients, Credito Emiliano oversees two climate-controlled warehouses with space to store more than 400,000 80-pound wheels of cheese, as well as a staff of inspectors who keep a close eye on the goods. If a producer defaults on a loan, the bank can turn around and sell the cheese, which can fetch thousands of dollars per wheel. But no one is rooting for such an outcome, as repaid loans provide incentive for Credito Emiliano to continue with this community-minded arrangement, while signaling that a thriving regional industry will continue supplying delicious cheese for all. Mangia!

Today's edition of Interesting Facts was written by Tim Ott and edited by Bess Lovejoy.