2004 Annual Report: Portrait of a Bank: Portrait of a Small Business Bank

Small business specialists and business bankers are able to provide guidance for every stage in the life of a small business, along with the capital to fuel growth. They can help arrange retirement and succession planning when a mature business needs to change ownership. Additional services are available by phone from our specialized small business call center and online through our small business Web site, which was ranked best in overall quality and ease of use for three straight years by Gomez, Inc., a leading firm in tracking Internet performance.

Through our relationship approach, we also meet the personal needs of business owners, their families and employees. Business owners can leverage their personal and company banking relationships to get favorable pricing.

In 2004, for the third consecutive year, Bank of America was the nation’s leading Small Business Administration (SBA) lender, providing more SBA loans to minority and nonminority borrowers than any other lender by a significant margin. Through our banking centers, we serve neighborhood firms of varying size and complexity, but most important, we consider no business too small for our services. In 2004, our customers’ small business loans ranged from several thousand to tens of millions of dollars, and our average loan size was around $30,000.