How Bank of America is growing its global payments business

Michael Short/Bloomberg

Bank of America's global payments business touches a lot of money.

$450 trillion per year, facilitated in 150 currencies across 60 countries and more than 100 payment systems across the globe. That's roughly $1.23 trillion per day.

Bank of America's payments business has been a key focus over the last few years as more and more financial institutions make payments a central part of their business strategy.

The Charlotte-based bank employs a client-centric, relationship-driven strategy to its payments business, Mark Monaco, head of Global Payments Solutions at Bank of America, told American Banker. And that strategy is paying the bank dividends in a time where macroeconomic uncertainty has shaken markets and forced small and large enterprises alike to rethink supply chains and payment corridors.

"Increasingly, as geopolitical events unfold, whether that be implications of COVID in terms of shifting supply chains, or whether it be bilateral relationships between countries causing corporations to rethink either their location or manufacturing strategies, their bankers are the ones that help them do that. So to some extent that level of volatility creates an opportunity for us," Monaco said.

Of course, artificial intelligence plays a role there, and has manifested itself in products specifically designed to help corporations manage uncertainty in the market.

To that end, Bank of America has leaned on its CashPro platform, which allows businesses to manage their cash flow, payments, and other financial activities. Payments through the CashPro App surpassed $1 trillion in 2024, representing a 25% year over year increase, according to Bank of America.

It offers a product called Intelligent Receivables, which uses artificial intelligence and advanced data capture technology to bring together payment information and associated remittance details from electronic and paper-based channels. That product is posting "double-digit-plus growth," Monaco said.

It also offers clients CashPro Chat with Erica, a service that integrates with the bank's chat bot, Erica; CashPro Forecasting, a machine learning and predictive analytics tool that automatically generates forecasts and continues to refine those forecasts based on a company's actual cash flows; and Guaranteed FX Rates, another AI-powered service that allows clients to lock in foreign transaction rates for up to one year.

Traditionally, Bank of America's payments division has always been "right-sized" to its position as an overall bank but has not necessarily been a focus, Tony DeSanctis, senior director at Cornerstone Advisors, told American Banker. Bank of America is the second largest bank by assets in the U.S., next to JPMorganChase.

"Their credit card business has consistently been moving down the list of top credit card issuers for almost a decade now. Their overall strategy is to be full service for their clients, including payments, but [the bank has] not taken a product-specific approach," he said. "They have never really chosen to be a differentiator on product as much as the overall relationship."

But Bank of America has been rethinking its payments strategy since 2023, when the Global Payments Solutions division was created as the result of a combination of two previously separate payments divisions at the bank: Global Transaction Services and Enterprise Payments.

Today, GPS is critical to the bank's operations, Monaco said, supporting all eight lines of business at the bank, including retail, preferred, wealth management, private banking, commercial banking, business banking and corporate and investment banking.

"Our position as the second largest bank in North America, gives us a unique franchise to support our clients as they migrate outside the U.S.," Monaco said. "We are a gateway for our clients both to go out and to come in."

GPS's overall strategy is to create robust payments and working capital management solutions for those clients, so that those clients bring their transactional banking – and liquidity – to the bank.

"We're kind of in the deposits business with a bunch of solutions, some of which generate a lot of revenue in terms of transaction revenue, some of which cost us money. But this is about relationships," Monaco said.

Bank of America calls 95% of the Fortune 500 clients, and serves one in five mid-sized companies with revenue of $5 million to $2 billion operating in the U.S., and has a presence in Asia, EMEA, Canada and Latin America, according to the company.

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The international space has been a growth driver for the bank's payments business, Monaco said. "We have and continue to hit records in our international volumes, both from a deposit, from a revenue, [and] from a transaction standpoint," he said.

But it's not international for international sake, Monaco said. "It's client driven. Payments is usually the lead product as companies either expand outside or come inside the U.S., because it facilitates the commerce that they're doing. We're supporting them with a set of solutions that help them make their business processes more efficient. And increasingly those are payment solutions that are both global and local."

Demand for globalized payment solutions has been increasing, Andrew Bigart, a partner at Venable Banking and Financial Services, told American Banker.

"In a more globalized, digital economy – where it's easier than ever for merchants to sell internationally, and companies have locations and are buying and selling services internationally – there's a real need for faster, more efficient payment options. That's what a lot of people are trying to solve," he said.

It can be difficult to get merchant processing relationships in every country that a company operates in, Bigart said. "Merchants are looking for service providers that can support those services."

Bank of America's clients are also particularly interested in liquidity management and cash-flow forecasting, Monaco said.

"We're very much focused on what I call practical innovation that's focused on a client's needs and solving business problems that improve a process or an outcome for them," Monaco said. "What we're trying to do is be the bridge between the future and help solve the current problems."

Looking ahead, Bank of America intends to double down on many of those capabilities, Monaco said. Broadly, that includes expanding the bank's international payment connectivity capabilities. Specifically, some of those investments include enhancements to its virtual account management product, open account automation on trading, CashPro and application program interface capabilities, which "have been growing like a weed.

"There is always more demand for projects amongst the team than we have money. And we invest hundreds of millions of dollars in this space," Monaco said. "Bank of America invests over $13 billion annually in technology – $4 billion in new products and initiatives – and I can tell you, we don't disclose the number, but of that $4 billion, GPS gets a very significant amount."