Bank of America Corp., the second-largest U.S. lender, attracted record new assets last year to its unit servicing retirement and other employee-benefit plans as it cross-sold products through the commercial bank, Bloomberg News reported today. The company saw $24.3 billion in new assets, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, said Kevin Crain, head of institutional retirement and benefit services at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Assets from clients who had an existing relationship with the global commercial bank more than doubled to $10.6 billion from $5 billion in 2011. The nation’s largest banks, including Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America and New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co., have been trying to win more of the $3.5 trillion that Americans held in 401(k) retirement plans as of September.
