Client: Bank of America


NARRATOR:

When you're responsible for as much of other people's money as the Bank of America, there's a lot to be said for not taking risks.

With nearly 2,000 retail branches in 11 states, this bank processes 20 million checks a day...a volume of paperwork exceeded only by our country's Federal Reserve.

This one institution moves more money every day than either the New York or the Tokyo stock exchanges: an average of 80 billion dollars, traded every single day.

More than 8 million personal checking accounts...7 million credit card accounts...1.4 million ATM transactions a day...and total assets, of nearly one quarter of a trillion dolars:

An endless stream of paper, and currency. Thousands of details, millions of calculations, billions of figures...and they all have to balance, at the end of every working day.

DICK NETTEL

As an organization, historically we've been very risk-averse. And if you think about the nature of this business, it's huge volumes and a single error -- on one hand, one of the things we preach, and we, you know, preached it like a TV evangelist...a single error was a failure that we would not accept.

NARRATOR:

But even at the Bank of America, not taking risks has its price. When Dick Nettell joined the the bank's Support Services, he found a division so mired in routine that even something as simple as entering and leaving the building was taking half an hour. Each person had to open the door with an individual badge...a security precaution that created a daily logjam. But in a risk-free culture, no one ever questioned the system, or considered a change.

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