Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan discusses consumer spending trends amid rising inflation, affordability issues and the impact of AI on the banking industry. He speaks with Bloomberg's Dani Burger at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York. (Corrects location of interview.)
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What Brian Moynihan said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, discussed consumer resilience, affordability, AI spending, and hiring. He said consumer spending on debit and credit cards is up 6% year over year, with entertainment spending up 13% in May, despite high gas prices and low confidence. He noted that lower-income households feel gas prices twice as much as others, but incomes are growing across segments. He dismissed concerns about shadow banking stress, saying Bank of America's credit quality is the best in 50 years, and highlighted affordable products like a $5 monthly account and a $500 no-interest loan. On AI, he said the bank is spending $13 billion on technology this year, with $350 million on AI-related spending, and is repositioning 14,000 employees through skills training. He emphasized hiring 2,000 summer interns, 2,000 permanent hires, 8,000 community college students, and 10,000 veterans over five years. He also mentioned a $2 million donation to Vet Tix for veterans and first responders.
Key takeaways
Consumer spending on credit and debit cards up 6% year over year, with entertainment spending up 13% in May.
Bank of America spending $13 billion on technology this year, including $350 million on AI-related spending.
14,000 employees repositioned through internal skills training in 2025.
Committed to hiring 8,000 community college students and 10,000 veterans over the next five years.
Donated $2 million to Vet Tix for veterans and first responders.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
6%
Year-over-year increase in consumer credit and debit card spending
It's great to be here, Danny. And I just want to start one of the things you've been very consistent on so far this year, whether it be conferences or in your earnings, just the strength of the consumer and the strength on your platform. Spending on credit and debt up 6% year over year. And yet gasoline prices are high. Consumer confidence is at rock bottom. If those types of things can't break the consumer, then what, if anything, can at this point?
So I think just to give the stats, you're about $2 trillion because from our consumers in the economy every year you're, excuse me, about $5 trillion of your dates for 2 trillion plus grown at 5% in the aggregate debit card, a car a little faster and it's going everywhere. Now, when you watch for then that, you start to see that your point about what consumers do, they're going to the gas station more times and spending a lower amount because they from budgetary basis, they want to spend that much, but they're still buying more in entertainment. It's up 13% year over year in the month of May. And so it's a little bit of conundrum. And why is that true? Go back to your question. What would break them there at unemployment fourth point 3% job formation not as strong as theoretical numbers, but for the population growth, it's actually pretty strong. You have 60 70,000 jobs a month. And so our team thinks will grow at 2.1% this year. And people say, well, you're optimistic. I'm saying I'm telling you what the consumer is doing today. But what they say they're going to do will come true if job cuts really come through that lower levels of employment right now, while these job cuts are open positions and attrition and things like that, they're not necessarily huge layoffs that are actually effectively affecting because job numbers are going up.
Well, I know in your earnings, you also noted, I think spending on gasoline was something up like 16%, 27%, okay, 27%. Is that something you're keeping an eye on?
We'll keep an eye on it if you sort it by low, medium and high income earning households. It obviously has about twice the impact of a lower and lower third of income households than it does a medium the higher. And so that's where you have to watch and make sure that they are able to carry that. And that's the people go to the gas station more often still spending the $40 so they don't get as much gas for it, but they go more often and they ration how they spend it to go to the places for gas cheaper? Let's just say that. And you can see people changing, micro changing. They'll they're going a little bit more to big box retailers. Little more second hand stores and all that adjustments. Part of the kind of what we talk about. But the reality is the incomes are growing for all those income segments. And so affordability is a real issue. But to fundamentally change affordability we have to build more housing. So there's the supply pressure to bring the prices down. Affordability, gas prices at $4.50 to a or above. We've been there before. So it is affordable. It's just not pleasant.
Someone once made the comment to me, Meredith Whitney, as a matter of fact, basically said, a lot of people are leaving the banking system that are especially on the lower income scale. They're turning to things like payday loans. She brought up the term shadow banking. I wonder if there is, or if you are concerned that maybe there is unseen stress in the system that has left the likes of a Bank of America.
When you look at the like the recent fed data on consumer credit, the reality is, is that there are pockets of delinquencies that are a little higher for subprime credit. We as a company don't do that business, and our credit's as good as it has been in 50 years on the consumer side is getting a little better. The flip of that, though, is we offer a set of products, a no overdraft account where you can't overdraft because you don't have cheques, frankly. And what you do is automated payments. We have a $5 a month account. We have a $500 loan where you pay no interest, no fees. You just have to pay it back. You can borrow it a couple times a year. So we're always working on affordability of our products. And our overdraft fees are $10 versus a market of 35 for those that choose to have overdraft. So we have an affordability package in banking the second to none. And if you look at our consumers from the spending side, they look like everyone else. From the borrowing side, we tend to be more of a prime lender. So you'll see some pockets. But even those pockets, if you look at some of our peer companies that are in those businesses, the delinquencies are fine right now. I'm very worried about what happens next, but it all comes down to unemployment and people being employed and earning money.
Well, the other side of the economy that's going absolutely gangbusters is is everything. And I and it's really impacting capital markets. And Bank of America is very involved in a lot of these deals, whether it be blockbuster IPO's, alphabet looking at raising equity, upping their amount from 80 to 85 billion. I wonder what impact you think that happens on the market, just because of the sheer amount of capital and things that are being issued? Is this something that the market can absorb and can absorb smoothly?
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Moynihan, B. (2026, June 3). BofA CEO Moynihan on Affordability, Lending and AI Spending [Interview transcript]. Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/959989/
MLA
Brian Moynihan. "BofA CEO Moynihan on Affordability, Lending and AI Spending." Bloomberg Television, 3 Jun. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/959989/.
BibTeX
@misc{moynihan2026_959989,
author = {Brian Moynihan},
title = {BofA CEO Moynihan on Affordability, Lending and AI Spending},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, Bloomberg Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {jun},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/959989/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
