BANKING : B of A Fears Local Operations, Not Other Giants, Official Says

Bank of America, the state’s biggest bank, doesn’t worry about competition from other industry giants, one of its top executives told members of a Newport Beach economic think tank Tuesday.

“It’s the well-run small community banks that give B of A a run for the money,” said James P. Miscoll, B of A’s vice chairman, told about 60 members of the nonprofit Newport Foundation attending a breakfast meeting at the Balboa Bay Club.

Miscoll said that independents with good management have been holding their own against the banking giant and that the bank’s pending merger with the state’s second-largest bank, Security Pacific National Bank, would probably not change that competition.

As the industry consolidates, he said, banks must ensure that they have good management and technological know-how to compete. In addition, he said, the industry needs better regulators and better regulations.

Miscoll, for instance, repeated the industry’s legislative battle cry for this year by pointing out a need to allow banks to open national branches. Interstate branching, he said, would save B of A $110 million now spent on separate boards of directors in every state the bank operates and on paperwork filed in every state.

Such laws, he said, make the U.S. system the “most outdated, archaic banking system of any country.”