Bank of America Corp., the largest commercial bank operating in Orange County, plans to add about 1,000 workers in a big expansion of its operations in Brea.
The move follows Bank of America’s $35 billion buy of credit card issuer MBNA Corp. last year and underscores the growing importance of the bank’s Brea operation.
Bank of America uses the Brea site as a call center. The bank plans to throw down the welcome-back mat there to MBNA, which now goes by the name FIA Card Services.
MBNA last year closed a 150-person office in Aliso Viejo, four years after executives with local ties brought the company’s Western U.S. regional office here from San Francisco.
The Aliso Viejo office, which housed administrative and call center operations, was Wilmington, Del.-based MBNA’s only office on the West Coast.
MBNA shifted the work to larger facilities in Delaware and Atlanta before the Bank of America buy.
The Aliso Viejo office, which opened on a five-year lease in 2001, came here because two of MBNA’s top executives, former vice chairman Lance Weaver and ex-chief technology officer Ron Davies, grew up in OC.
Bank of America isn’t saying much about the Brea expansion. About 1,000 positions would be added to support an FIA credit card servicing center, according to a spokeswoman.
The move bucks a trend of big companies opting to expand outside the county, usually to locales where it’s cheaper to do business.
“It’s welcome news to hear someone moving here rather than moving out,” Chapman University economist Esmael Adibi said.
Chapman, in its annual economic forecast, predicted some job losses this year in the local financial services sector.
“We still believe this to be the case, but this addition of 1,000 workers, if it takes place, gives us a cushion,” Adibi said.
The Brea expansion actually is part of a streamlining at Bank of America.
Earlier this month, the bank announced layoffs of several hundred employees at call centers in downtown Seattle, starting in October.
The call centers, as well as one in Richland, Wash., are being closed as part of an effort to streamline services.
Bank of America said the jobs were being moved to larger centers in Brea, Las Vegas and Tempe.
The bank is the county’s largest here with $13 billion in local deposits, according to the Business Journal’s yearly list.
Bank of America has seen a steady drop-off in workers in the past few years.
Last year, Bank of America reported total employment of 4,500 people in OC.
Roughly 1,500 to 2,000 of those people are based at the Brea operations center near the Orange (57) Freeway.
Earlier this year, Bank of America announced plans to open a major banking center in the heart of Santa Ana. It already has five branches in the largely Hispanic city of 350,000 people. The branch is set to open later this year at Fourth and Main streets.
