Dive Brief:

• Bank of America is launching a new rewards program May 27 that expands the pool of customers who can access benefits, the lender said Wednesday.
• The no-fee loyalty program marks a “major milestone” for the bank because it rewards any customer with a personal checking account, regardless of their balance, said Shikha Narula, the bank’s head of consumer deposit products and rewards. 
• BofA counts 11 million members within its current rewards program, which was launched in 2014, and executives expect that number to at least double over the next few years.

Dive Insight:

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank will begin notifying customers next week of the forthcoming changes, and existing members will be automatically enrolled in their appropriate tier in the new program. New customers will opt in.

The bank’s current rewards program required a $20,000 minimum balance as an entry point. The change means the rewards program will be available to about 30 million existing customers, executives said.

The new program, incentivizing customers to do more with the bank, moves BofA “into the next era of loyalty,” by building on its current program’s success “but evolving it to be more modern and aligned with our changing client needs,” said Mary Hines Droesch, the bank’s head of consumer and small-business products and analytics. 

The new program will feature four tiers: member, covering customers with less than $30,000; preferred plus, for those with $30,000 to less than $100,000; preferred honors, for customers with $100,000 to less than $1 million; and premier, for those with balances at $1 million and above.

Credit card rewards bonuses will remain, although for existing rewards program members, they may change; any benefit set to change will remain in place for at least six months from the May rollout of the new program, BofA executives said. 

The credit card rewards boost ranges from 10% to 75% across the four tiers. 

The new program will offer home and auto lending discounts or waive fees. It will add benefits customers indicated they wanted, such as identity and fraud protection exclusive to the rewards program, Hines Droesch said. Some competitors offer such services at a cost, inspiring BofA to provide them at no charge, Narula said.

Lifestyle benefits such as subscription credits for news and entertainment services, curated experiences and discounts for high-end brands, will be a core part of the program, Narula said.

And offering those earlier – at $100,000 in balances, compared to $1 million – “is a major step change for us,” she said. Still, “the level of how highly personalized and curated they will be at the premier level will look and feel very different” from lower tiers, she added.

The bank plans to personalize deals based on customers’ location or their prior rewards interactions. 

Bank of America is also redesigning the digital customer experience within its mobile app and online banking platform, Narula said. 

Erica, the bank’s AI-powered virtual assistant, will help customers learn about the rewards program, and “over time, we hope to get to a place where we're proactively prompting clients” on ways they could unlock more benefits, Narula said. Erica will also be another channel the bank will use to drive program enrollments, Hines Droesch said. 

The rewards program overhaul is part of a broader effort to fuel stronger growth in BofA’s consumer bank and meet targets laid out at the company’s November investor day, including a goal of generating $20 billion in annual profit in the medium term. The second-largest U.S. bank aims to increase its consumer client count to 75 million, from the current 69 million, over the next three to five years.

Bank of America has also bolstered investment in its credit card business, putting hundreds of millions of dollars into digital enhancements, card refreshes, increased marketing and relationships with co-brand partners. 

The bank is squarely focused on holding the core operating account of its clients and deepening from there, Hines Droesch said.

While other banks might offer “a program for their deposit clients, or a program for their credit card clients,” she said, “this really brings together all the products and services that we offer to our clients into one holistic program.”