"[3] In 2012, journalist Matt Taibbi described the transition as "a cartoonish arms race of bank acquisitions that would ultimately turn the American business world upside down".

Their paternal great-grandfather, Duncan Donald McColl (1842–1911) was an attorney who had developed the first railroad (the 50-mile (80 km) South Carolina Pacific Railway[7]) and the first cotton mills in Marlboro County.

"[3] After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1957, McColl joined the United States Marine Corps and served a two-year tour of duty until 1959.

Young McColl went to work as a management trainee for American Commercial Bank in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Over the next few years, it acquired more than 200 thrifts and community banks, many through the Resolution Trust Corporation program (1989 to 1992).

[18] During the 2007–2008 financial crisis, after McColl's retirement, Bank of America was dubbed "too big to fail" and received $45 billion in federal government funds.

[25] McColl subsequently established and was chairman of MBL Advisors Holdings, LLC (McColl Brother Lockwood), a Charlotte-based company with his son-in-law, Luther Lockwood, as managing principal and providing wealth transfer planning, business succession and executive benefits services to business owners and public company executives.

[21] McColl has been on the board of directors of Sykes Enterprises Inc.,[26] Canal Industries; Atrium Health, formerly Carolinas HealthCare System; Charlotte Center City Partners; Charlotte Latin School from 1977 to 1982, Cousins Properties, Inc.; Faison Associates; Foundation for the Carolinas; General Parts, Inc.; NuTech Solutions Inc.; Harris Teeter; and Sonoco Products Company.

[27] McColl has supported a broad range of academic, civic and arts causes for Charlotte, the state of North Carolina and the Southeast — strongly encouraging Charlotte's urban redevelopment (enabled by Bank of America's revitalization of Fourth Ward and building of Gateway Village in Third Ward),[28] playing a key role in Charlotte's attracting the Carolina Panthers National Football League[28] and the Charlotte Hornets National Basketball Association franchises,[29] supporting Habitat for Humanity,[28] chairing The Forum for Corporate Responsibility (2003),[28] financing inner-city and minority-owned businesses,[29] encouraging light and high-speed rail, and supporting civil rights[29] and gay rights.

He endowed the Charlotte Children's Theatre which includes the McColl family Theater,[32] funded the McColl Center for Visual Art (a Charlotte-based organization that promotes the visual arts in the Southeast),[33] endowed an English professorship at the Norfolk Academy, Norfolk, Virginia in honor of first cousin Edith Pratt Breeden (Patty) Masterson (1922–1997, attorney, teacher),[34] and endowed a professorship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science in honor of his mother Frances Pratt Carroll McColl and sister Frances Carroll McColl Covington (1932–1990).

[35] "My mother taught everyone in the family to love books, and we have prospered from having access to them and, perhaps more important, knowing where to turn to find the information we need."

Recalling hours his mother spent reading to her four children in Bennettsville, S.C., McColl said, "I think we were educated far beyond my school system.

"[35]In 1995 Bank of America bought a burned out church on North Tryon Street with the express purpose of converting it into an artist's residency.

[38] In 1998 and 2004, Jane Spratt McColl, with Hugh McColl, donated 400 acres (1.6 km2) on the Catawba River in York County, South Carolina near Rock Hill, South Carolina for an environmental museum,[39] possibly to be named the Museum of Life and the Environment, with building design by architect William McDonough.

Hendrick later pleaded guilty to mail fraud[41] and admitted to giving hundreds of thousands of dollars, automobiles, and houses to American Honda Motor Company executives — eventually requesting a pardon from President Bill Clinton.

[27] In 2005, McColl won the Echo Foundation Award Against Indifference, [51] founded in 1997 to carry the message of Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel — a call to action for human dignity, justice and moral courage.