Bank of America to add R.I. call center, up to 900 jobs

The Bank of America Corp. plans to open a call center in East Providence next year that will create 700 to 900 jobs, president and CEO Kenneth D. Lewis announced Thursday during his first visit to the state since his company’s acquisition of FleetBoston Financial Corp.

The new “contact center,” as Lewis called it, will add substantially to the bank’s Rhode Island employment, which stood at about 4,000 before the merger was completed in April, including another call center in Lincoln, an operations center in Johnston, offices in Providence, and 48 branches across the state.

Lewis said the new facility will provide support to Bank of America consumer customers, working in tandem with call centers in more than 30 other locations. The Lincoln call center now serves Fleet and Quick & Reilly brokerage customers.

Hiring will begin immediately, Lewis said, with training to be conducted in phases beginning late this year, and a goal of full completion by mid-year, when the East Providence center is to open.

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Bank of America Rhode Island president William Hatfield said the facility will be at 3400 Pawtucket Ave., in a former jewelry manufacturing plant for Monet and Trifari that is now vacant. He couldn’t say how much the company would invest in refurbishing the building, but he said it would begin dedicating resources to it “immediately.”

Asked what kinds of jobs the center would offer, Hatfield said “a whole range,” but he did acknowledge that many would be at a starting level, “an opportunity for people to come into the company and develop the skills” to move ahead.

Bank of America’s plans were unveiled at a State House press conference with Governor Donald L. Carcieri, legislative leaders and Rhode Island’s congressional delegation.

“Our goal is to grow our business in Rhode Island and throughout New England, and today’s announcement is just one example of how we’re doing that,” Lewis said. “We continue to value our strong, positive collaboration with Rhode Island’s public leaders and the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation. This collaboration is a model for how we can work together to create jobs and economic growth across the region.”

Lewis had warned when the Fleet merger was first announced that it would cost about 12,500 jobs, but he had said customer-facing jobs would be spared, resulting in public outrage when about 1,000 branch jobs were suddenly cut this summer.

Several top officials in Massachusetts and Connecticut responded with harsh criticism of the North Carolina-based bank and even threatened retribution. Carcieri and Rhode Island economic development officials, meanwhile, chose a subdued, conciliatory approach, and stuck to it even after last month, Bank of America announced it would cut another 4,500 jobs across its footprint, including about 50 in Rhode Island.

Bank officials wouldn’t say how many Rhode Islanders are currently on the payroll. But state economic development director Michael McMahon said an amendment this summer to the state Jobs Development Act that allows the company to keep its job-creation tax breaks even if employment dips below 3,600 in the first 24 months of the transition had been “very important” in promoting future growth here.

“My approach, with Mike McMahon, was what can we do to help, instead of being a hindrance,” Carcieri said. “How can we help the process, having been in the corporate world?” And the answer was to give the bank “a little bit of slack” in terms of job levels.

“The important thing for us in this state is to support the companies that are here and have plans to grow,” Carcieri said. “This is a company that is going to do good things in the financial industry, and we want to be part of it…. This is such a happy day for me, because I want to see Bank of America grow in the state. This is a win-win all the way around for our state, and I know it will be a win-win for Bank of America.”

Amid a bitterly contentious election season, which most recently has included ads claiming Carcieri has failed to deliver on his promise to bring new jobs to the state, the Bank of America event was unusually bipartisan. Democratic House Speaker William Murphy, whose Republican opponent Carcieri strongly supports, sat behind the governor and spoke briefly, as did U.S. Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, also facing a Carcieri-backed rival.

Kennedy acknowledged that “many of us felt very uncomfortable” with the Fleet merger when it was first announced, and feared it wouldn’t be a good thing for Rhode Island. “Clearly we’ve learned today that it is a good thing,” he said.

The friendly attitude and cooperation elicited some rarely heard compliments Thursday, including praise from Anne Finucane, Northeast market president for Bank of America, for the state’s “forward-thinking business environment.” Hatfield said Rhode Island’s treatment of the bank was “truly a model for economic stimulus and job growth.”

It was a year ago Wednesday that Bank of America and Fleet announced they would merge to create the nation’s largest retail bank, with branches in 29 states, some 33 million consumer relationships, and a worldwide financial reach.

Bank of America won’t be changing the signs on its Fleet branches and other facilities until December, but Finucane, a former Fleet executive, said: “Be assured, we’re there now.” In an interview, she said the bank’s first focus will be to form “deeper relationships” with the customers it took on from Fleet, though gaining consumer market share is also a goal. On the business banking side, Finucane said that with Bank of America’s bigger resources, “you can expect us to be even more aggressive in terms of business development.”

As of June 30, Bank of America’s Rhode Island deposit market share was about 23 percent (excluding the MetLife Bank’s local processing center), down from about 23.9 percent a year earlier, but actually reflecting deposit growth. It remains a distant second to Citizens Bank, which had 43.7 percent market share as of June 30. But despite predictions that Fleet customers would be lost due to the merger, in fact the bank has gained deposit accounts in the Fleet footprint.

Lewis’s next visit to Rhode Island is scheduled for Nov. 22, when he is to be the keynote speaker at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce annual dinner. He said he had been scheduled to be elsewhere on Thursday, but he changed his plans because he felt he “owed it” to Rhode Island’s leaders to be here for the jobs announcement.

“This is not the last time I’ll be here,” he told a gleeful audience. “And more important, this is not the last time that we’ll be talking about more jobs for Rhode Island.”

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