The future is looking bright for Boston-area small business owners, who largely expressed confidence in their local economy as well as plans to hire new employees in a recent Bank of America survey.

According to BofA’s semiannual Small Business Owner Report, 60 percent of Boston-area small business owners plan to hire in the coming year, more than double the number who said the same thing two years ago. The bank also found in its survey that 70 percent of local businesses plan to grow over the next five years, a 13 percent increase from last year, and 68 percent think their revenue will increase in the year ahead.

Nearly a quarter (22 percent) of small business owners surveyed said they plan to apply for a loan in 2016 and 55 percent of those will use that capital to hire more employees, Bank of America found.

“Talent is the backbone of any successful business,” Colleen Matteson, BofA’s Boston small business banker manager, said in a statement. “As we see time and time again, especially with small business owners in the tight-knit Boston community, hiring the right people is crucial to grow. It’s encouraging to see this investment pay off with so many businesses planning to expand in the coming years.”

More than half (52 percent) of business owners said they believe their local economy will improve over the next year, and 47 percent said they think the national economy will improve, too (up from 37 percent last year). Just 31 percent, however, said they believe the global economy will improve.

Finally, Boston small business owners were about half as likely as their national counterparts to have been a victim of a cyber-attack (6 percent versus 12 percent), but they are less likely to say they feel prepared to handle such an attack (54 percent versus 66 percent).

The full report is available here.