Bank of America Looking to Double Market Share in Its Consumer Businesses

Bank of America Corp’s CEO Brian Moynihan feels confident that they can expand its consumer market share in the United States. He said, “Our market share in consumer is probably 12, 13, 14 percent, depending on who counts. The reality is you could double that.” The statements were made during an interview with the Financial Times.

While the CEO of Bank of America pointed out that several consumer brands are able to achieve much greater market share in niche markets than Bank of America does in the banking industry, the banking industry is going through a major change comparatively to the automotive industry and the beer industry that he referenced. The struggle that Bank of America will have in increasing market share will not come from traditional large competitors or even regional banks, but more likely from new online banking companies.

Market share will also be increasingly difficult to define, as various fintech firms provide some of the services a traditional bank would but not fall short of the full suite consumer services.

Moynihan did not speak about how long of a period in which he would like to achieve the increase in share. However, he did site the bank’s scale in being a strategic advantage. “If we do a good job for the customers and clients and we’re fair in our pricing, I think that’s good because the scale that we have enables us to do more for the customers”, he said. His comments imply a fight between large banks and niche fintech firms, and not midsize banks.

Bank of America continues to focus almost exclusively on the United States market when it comes to its consumer business as management is clearly looking to exploit its core competencies. Moynihan made it clear that the effort to expand its consumer business on a global scale would take more effort and yield less fruit that pushing harder on the domestic front. Bank of America’s consumer banking area is its largest business and is where the brand is the strongest, although it does rival other large banks on the institutional side of the business as well.