EN
We show that every spectrally bounded linear map Φ from a Banach algebra onto a standard operator algebra acting on a complex Banach space is square-zero preserving. This result is used to show that if Φ₂ is spectrally bounded, then Φ is a homomorphism multiplied by a nonzero complex number. As another application to the Hilbert space case, a classification theorem is obtained which states that every spectrally bounded linear bijection Φ from ℬ(H) onto ℬ(K), where H and K are infinite-dimensional complex Hilbert spaces, is either an isomorphism or an anti-isomorphism multiplied by a nonzero complex number. If Φ is not injective, then Φ vanishes at all compact operators.