Merrill Lynch getting more business from BofA clients

As Bank of America focuses on referring clients from one division to the others, Merrill Lynch has announced that it opened more retirement plan accounts with the bank's corporate clients than it did the year before. These clients accounted for $14 billion in new assets, 70 percent of all the new benefit plans at the bank.

CHARLOTTE SPENDING FASTER THAN POPULATION IS GROWING: The Queen City is a poster child for a new budget challenge facing municipalities across the country, economists from Wells Fargo say in a report Monday. While city revenue is starting to grow again after the recession, the growth in the property tax base is slower now. Wells calls its a structural shift that will limit how much the city is able to spend in the coming years.

BANK OF AMERICA PROMISES TO HIRE LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED: Brian Moynihan was one of a number of CEOs to meet with President Obama to pledge to come up with programs to hire people who have been out of work for an extended period, Bloomberg reports.

BANK OF THE CAROLINAS LOSES MONEY: The Mocksville bank lost $764,000 in the fourth quarter and $1.3 million over the course of 2013. It didn't help that the bank wasn't able to recover any loan loss reserves like it did the year before.

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