¶ … Privacy Policies of JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup The JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup are the top three American banks with reference to their assets and revenues. Operating in different countries, these banks are the major actors in the U.S. financial industry. The objective of this paper is to explore the privacy policies of the JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citigroup. Moreover, the study explores the mission statements of the three companies, and the strategies the companies can employ in improving their privacy policies.

Bank of America

The BOA (Bank of America) is one of the leading financial institutions in the United States. Headquartered in Charlotte, the Bank of America ranks the second largest financial institution in term of the asset. In 2013, the Bank of America is the 21st largest company in term of revenue in the United States. At the end of 2015 fiscal year, the total asset of the Bank of America was $2.14 Trillion with the net income of $15.89 billion. Bank of America offers their product and services through 16,000 ATM locations, 5,100 banking centers mobile and online banking platforms. (Bank of America, 2015).

BOA Mission Statements

The mission statement of Bank of America is to offer investment and lending product to serve moderate and low-income earners as well as families and individuals, improve the moderate and low-income communities and create a sustainable long practice for the community they serve. (Bank of America, 2015).

Privacy Policy

The Bank of America privacy policies follow the federal law guidelines that advise financial organizations to limit sharing their personal information. Bank of America collects the personal information of customers such as employment information, SSN (social security number), credit information, account balance, and investment experience. In their privacy policy statement, the Bank of America states the reason for collecting the personal information of the customer. The bank collects the customer personal identified information such as names, email addresses, postal addresses, and telephone to identify customers and use them to respond to customers' inquiries. Moreover, the information collected assists the bank to verify the customers' identity before allowing them to conduct online transactions, prevent fraud, and enhance the security of their accounts. (Bank of America, 2015).

JP Morgan Chase

The JP Morgan Chase is among the oldest financial institutions in the United States dated back to over 200 years. Similar to the Bank of America, the JP Morgan is one of largest financial in the world with $2.4 trillion worth of assets. Operating in more than 60 countries, JP Morgan is a leader in investment commercial banking, asset management, and business commercial banking. The JP Morgan is also one of the Big 4 banks in the United States with the net income of $24.44 Billion at the end of the 2015 fiscal year. (JP Morgan America, 2015).

Mission Statement

The mission statement of the JP Morgan is to be the best financial service company globally because our excellent platform and great heritage we believe are within our reach.

JP Morgan Privacy Policy

The JP Morgan privacy policy is similar to the privacy policy of Bank of America. The JP Morgan stipulates in their website that the customer privacy is important, and the bank collects the private information of their customers such as names, addresses, email, and telephone number to assist in a customers' identification and uses them communicate to customers. Moreover, the bank collects the SSN (Social Security Number) of the customers for the identification purpose and credit report. In accordance with the federal government regulation, the JP Morgan protects the personal information of their customers by maintaining procedural, electronic, and physical safeguards of the customer information from an unauthorized access and alteration. However, the privacy policy of the JP Morgan is more comprehensive than the privacy policy of the Bank of America because the company states that they may collect information about the customer from both offline and online sources. The information collected is to assist the JP Morgan to evaluate, administer and improve their product and services. (JP Morgan America, 2015).

Citigroup

Citigroup is an American multinational financial institution operating in the financial and banking industry. Headquartered in New York, the Citigroup is the third largest bank in the United States by assets. The Citigroup manages more than 200 million accounts and operates in 140 countries with 160,000 offices globally. At the end of the 2015 fiscal year, the Citigroup recorded a net income of $17.24 billion with the total assets of $1.73 Trillion. Over the years, the Citigroup has formed a conglomerate from CitiMortgage, Citi Commercial Bank, Citi Retail Services, and Citi Banking. (Citigroup, 2015).

Mission Statements

The Citigroup believes that early intervention, as well as full understanding of alternatives, are critical to minimizing or mitigate the effect of foreclosures. (Citigroup, 2015).
Citigroup Privacy Policy

An analysis of the privacy policies of the Citigroup shows that their privacy policy is more comprehensive than the privacy policies of the Bank of America and JP Morgan. Although, the contents are similar. Unlike the Bank of America and JP Morgan that collect customer information offline and online, the Citigroup collect customers' information uniquely online. However, Citigroup states that the security of the personal information of their customer is their priority by protecting the electronic and physical document in accordance with the applicable law. Judy, al. (2014) point out privacy laws in the United States are to assist individuals having control over their personal information. Thus, the Citigroup privacy policies assist customers to possess facilities to protect their personal information.

The organization also collects both personal and non-personal information of their customer to manage their online marketing. Similar to the privacy policies of both the JP Morgan and Bank of America, the Citigroup also collects the personal information of their customers such as names, email address, phone number, and addresses. This information assists the Citigroup to offer interactive online experience. However, the Citigroup does not stipulate that the SSN is a mandatory information that needs to be collected from customers. However, the Citigroup ought to have included the SSN as a personal information that needs to be collected from the customer because the SSN assists the organization to identify the customers and carry out a credit report on customers. (Citigroup, 2015).

The major difference between the privacy policy of the Citigroup and the privacy policies of JP Morgan and Bank of America is that the Citigroup elaborates a comprehensive strategy to protect the information of their customer online. Keys, Winstead,, & Simmons, (2010) point out that business organizations should design their privacy policies in accordance to the Article IV that states that organizations should not violate an individual right to secure their personal information.

Citigroup believes in using the sophisticated technology to protect the customers' information. For example, the Citigroup provides a strong encryption to protect customers' data and discusses the strategy employed by using a strong encryption tool to protect the customer's data. The organization uses the password protection tools such as the SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and 128-bit encryption to protect critical organizational infrastructures. Moreover, the 128-bit encryption uses the 2128 possible key combinations; however, only one of the combinations can unlock the information. (Citigroup, 2015).

The Citigroup privacy policy also educates the customer on the strategy to manage their customer' customer and passwords. According to the Citigroup privacy policy guideline, the customers are to change their passwords periodically to enhance the security of their passwords. The Citigroup also makes the customers aware that if there is no activity within 15 minutes after they log in, the customer session will be terminated. Moreover, the Citigroup discusses the strategy to protect the customers' information through the online security. The organization discusses the strategy that the customer should employ in protecting their computer systems and online communication against the virus, and spyware using the antivirus, and anti-spyware. Moreover, the company privacy policy also educates their customer that they should update their security patches regularly with the latest operating system. However, analysis of the privacy policies of the Citigroup, Bank of America, and JP Morgan reveal that their privacy policies are not as comprehensive as they ought to be for the top banks in the United States. Thus, the next section provides the recommendations on how they can use customer sensitive information to enhance their profitability and the method to protect the customers' information. (Citigroup, 2015).

Recommendations

The analysis of the privacy policies of the JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Bank of America reveals that these banks can turn the mass volume of information collected from their customer to their market advantages. Typically, the data collected can be used for their marketing plan and to identify the potential customers for their product and services. Moreover, they can use the information to plan their marketing campaigns to achieve the competitive market advantages. In the United States, thousands of financial institutions operate in the financial industry, and if the Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan intend to remain the leaders, they should create…