Delivering responsible growth

At Bank of America, we are guided by a common purpose to help make financial lives better through the power of every connection.

We’ve transformed Bank of America into a simpler, more efficient company that combines two crucial areas: growing the economy while creating tangible value for our business,

our clients and the communities we serve. We’re helping create jobs, develop communities, foster economic mobility and address society’s biggest challenges around the world.

People in meeting

We must grow and win the market — no excuses

The first tenet of responsible growth is that we have to grow, no excuses.

Our eight lines of business are focused on delivering one company, deepening client relationships and developing new relationships.

We must grow with our customer-focused strategy

We serve three groups of customers — people, companies and institutional investors. In the U.S. we serve all three customer groups, and outside the U.S. we serve larger companies and institutional investors.

As we look across our businesses and the clients they serve, we have a leading set of capabilities in every area where we operate. That is the power of this company; that is the strength of the model and the balance we are striking to ensure we are doing all we can for our customers and clients, while optimizing our balance sheet to perform efficiently with the post-crisis regulations.

Woman listening

We must grow within our risk framework

Managing risk well is foundational to responsible growth. It contributes to the strength and sustainability of our company for the future, and it supports the work we do today to serve our customers, clients, communities and shareholders.

Everyone has a role to play in managing risk. It’s about understanding the risks and reward in all we do to ensure we’re there for our customers, clients, communities and shareholders –in good and bad times. All employees are responsible for proactively managing risk as part of their day-to-day activities through prompt identification, escalation and debate of risks.

Maintaining intellectual curiosity and identifying new risks is fundamental to understanding all the ways we can win or lose. The risks we face change and develop over time, and understanding new risks as they develop is a key part of our business processes.

We must grow in a sustainable manner

We must ensure our growth is sustainable. This requires progress across three dimensions: driving operational excellence, being a great place to work for our teammates and sharing our success with our communities.

Driving operational excellence

Operational excellence is a process of continuous improvement that generates savings and efficiencies that we can then reinvest. By improving the way we serve clients, streamlining our internal processes and creating other efficiencies that stem from the thousands of ideas our teammates generate each year, we are able to invest in our team, our capabilities, our client experience and our communities and shareholders.

Great place to work

This includes being a diverse and inclusive workplace, attracting and developing talent, recognizing and rewarding performance, and supporting our employees’ physical, emotional and financial wellness.

Sharing our success

That includes all we do to drive progress on societal priorities, including those that are broadly defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We do this through our sustainable finance efforts, our philanthropy, and how we manage our own activities and expenses.