FleetBoston Financial was a Boston, Massachusetts–based bank created in 1999 by the merger of Fleet Financial Group and BankBoston. In 2004 it merged with Bank of America; all of its banks and branches were given the Bank of America logo. Providence-based Fleet Bank began to acquire banks outside Rhode Island in the 1980s and early 1990s, most notably the Bank of New England in 1991. In 1988, Fleet merged with Albany, New York-based Norstar Bancorp to form Fleet/Norstar Financial Group. In 1992, the company was renamed Fleet Financial Group. Fleet was already one of the three largest... banks in New England, together with Shawmut National Corp. and its largest affiliate Shawmut Bank, and Bank of Boston, yet state and federal regulators allowed Fleet to merge with Shawmut in 1995, creating a major regional bank that held 30% of all deposits in New England. Fleet was now the largest bank in New England and the ninth largest in the United States. Although old Fleet was the nominal survivor, the merged bank was headquartered in Boston.
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