Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Clown-Free Zone... sorry, no clowns allowed -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Earlie who wrote (75400)	3/5/2001 8:20:50 AM
From: Box-By-The-Riviera™	Respond to of 436258

CHARLOTTE (Dow Jones)--California's energy crisis has forced periodic closings at Bank of America Corp.'s (BAC) 1,000 branches in the state and resulted in the use of back-up generators for technology and processing operations, President and Chief Operating Officer Ken Lewis said Friday. But a bigger worry is the effect of the crisis on the state's economy, Lewis told more than 200 people during a speech in Charlotte. "What I'm worried about more than (branch closings) is the possible effect on the economy of California, which possibly could spill over into the rest of the country," Lewis said. "That's not the case to date. So it's so far, relatively so good given all the issues they're dealing with." But California's is the fifth-largest economy in the world and has a large impact on the U.S. economy, he noted. Lewis, who wasn't available for media questions after the speech, didn't mention the bank's credit exposure to California's cash-strapped utilities, which one analyst has estimated at between $700 million and $1 billion. His remarks came during a question-and-answer session at a forum, "Leading Change Through Technology," hosted by Wake Forest University's Babcock Graduate School of Management. During his prepared remarks, Lewis talked about technology and how it should be driven. He said the business landscape is littered with corpses of businesses whose leaders allowed themselves to be led by technology. "They tried to push their customers to change too soon," he said. Instead, leadership should drive change and technology, he said. And Bank of America's online banking business shows that strategy is right, Lewis said. Bank of America has always viewed online banking as an addition to existing service-delivery channels such as branch banking and banking by phone, rather than a separate world designed for a separate set of customers. "Last year, we were adding about 100,000 customers a month," he said. "That grew to 125,000 and in January 2001 we added 143,000." Bank of America has three million customers using online banking. As the company has studied its online banking customers, it has learned the early adopters of technology have distinct characteristics and needs from other customers. But online banking "is being widely adopted by the whole range of our customers, and so we can no longer design the capabilities or plan the rollout with the early adopters in mind," Lewis said.