Bank of America (BofA) has committed to increase its spending with small, medium-sized and diverse businesses, pledging to purchase $10bn in products and services from those companies over five years, with the spending amount expected to grow by an average of more than 5% each year.
Small, medium-sized and diverse businesses provide BofA with a range of services and products, including advertising, furniture, cleaning, courier service, home inspections, legal services, landscaping, maintenance, photography, security and software.
As part of its commitment to small and medium-sized businesses, BofA has enhanced its Advisor Alliance retirement plan platform, which gives those businesses a combination of Merrill Lynch investment services and recordkeeping and retirement plan administration services from preferred partners.
According to the BofA, in the first quarter of this year, it loaned $19.4bn to small and medium-sized businesses, which was nearly $3bn more than during the same period last year. The bank loaned $81.4bn to small and medium-sized businesses in 2009.
Brian Moynihan, president and CEO of BofA, said: “What businesses of all sizes are telling us they need most right now is more business. In addition to extending credit and providing technical assistance and a full range of banking services to our clients, we want to increase our support by purchasing more of their products and services, particularly from small, medium-sized and diverse businesses – coast to coast and across a wide range of industries. We hope other large companies will do the same.”