Bank of America sees consumer digital banking momentum accelerate in Q4 2018

Underlining a trend already exhibited in the third quarter of 2018, Bank of America’s consumer banking segment continued to see growing digital use in the final quarter of last year. This is indicated by the financial results the bank posted earlier today.

The bank marked 36.3 million active digital banking users; 26.4 million active mobile banking users, as well as 1.5 billion logins to its consumer banking application. Digital sales accounted for 27% of all Consumer Banking sales, whereas 49% of all digital sales came from mobile.

A total of 52 million P2P payments were made via Zelle®, representing $14 billion, up 97% YoY.

AI virtual assistant Erica also enjoyed growing use, as 4.8 million users have completed 23 million interactions with the bot since its launch.

Speaking of digital use growth, let’s note that the number of CashPro Mobile users surged 104% YoY, whereas logins were up 186% in 2018. Volume of Intelligent Receivables, which uses AI to match payments and receivables, grew five times YoY. Digital Disbursements, the business-to-consumer payments solution that leverages the bank’s investment in Zelle, saw domestic volumes grow 66% in 2018.

The consumer banking segment registered net income of $3.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, up $1.1 billion or 52% from the year-ago quarter. Revenue increased $922 million, or 10%, to $9.9 billion.

Across all segments, net income amounted to $7.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, up 208% from the year-ago quarter. The result was driven by continued strong operating leverage and asset quality, as well as the benefit of recent tax reform. Pre-tax income was $8.7 billion, up 41% from the final quarter of 2017.

Revenue, net of interest expense, increased 11% to $22.7 billion, led by net interest income, reflecting benefits from higher interest rates as well as loan and deposit growth.