to investors, exit the mutual fund clearing business, and pay more than $500 million in fines (including $140 million to settle complaints against FleetBoston). The Bank agreed to pay an additional $460 million to settle investor claims that it did not adequately conduct due diligence when underwriting bonds of WorldCom in 2001 and 2002.
This Writer's Experience at Bank of America
The mission of the Bank of America is to provide full banking services and financial services to all elements of the economy. Upgrading quality in services at Bank of America was the institution's response to an increasingly competitive banking and financial services environment in the United States. The development of a total quality management (TQM) program at Bank of America began with a quest to find out exactly what the bank's customers wanted in the way of service. Bank of America, thus, developed its TQM program around a structure of relationship banking. Within the relationship banking concept, customers are viewed as clients. Where the customary emphasis is on the acquisition of new clients, within the context of Bank of America's TQM program client retention and improvement receives equal attention. Thus, relationship banking in Bank of America's TQM program may be said to be attracting clients, and maintaining and enhancing client relationships.
The best way of explaining relationship banking in Bank of America's TQM program is to compare it to the approach to banking that it replaced at Bank of America with the implementation of the TQM program. This more traditional approach is variously called order-taking banking, and transaction banking. There are a number of points of comparison, of which the most significant are as follows:
The focus in traditional banking is on attracting new customers. Considering the attraction of new customers, however, is just a first step in relationship banking in Bank of America's TQM program.<...