Banks, Bank Of America | featured news

Bank of America has reported a sharp rise in profits after it shed costs and set aside less money for bad loans. The bank reported first quarter net income of $2.3bn (£1.5bn), after making $328m in the same quarter a year ago.

Most of the $40 billion Bank of America has set aside to pay out over the mortgage meltdown can be blamed on malfeasance at Countrywide Financial. But some investors say that BofA’s hands are not totally clean in this mess — and that the bank has gotten off too easy thus far.

Bank of America agreed on Monday to pay more than $10 billion to Fannie Mae to settle claims over troubled mortgages that soured during the housing crash, mostly loans issued by the bank's Countrywide Financial subsidiary.

Bank of America has shelved plans for new fees that could have hit at least 10 million customers by the end of this year, skirting a potential replay of a 2011 uproar over consumer-banking charges.

The $1-billion civil suit alleges that BofA's Countrywide fraudulently deceived mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into believing the company's risky loans were safe and sound.

Swiss private bank Julius Baer says it plans to cut about 1,000 jobs from Merrill Lynch's wealth management operations outside the United States following a deal to buy the unit from Bank Of America.

Bank of America announced on Friday that it would pay $2.43 billion to settle a class action lawsuit related to its acquisition of Merrill Lynch.

The institution is accelerating its cost-cutting strategy, planning to pare its operations so much that it will lose its spot as the nation’s largest bank employer, falling behind the likes of JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citigroup.

Drug money has a way of sprawling. And some of it may have reached Bank of America.A federal probe into Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel, claims that the group has been laundering money through accounts at BofA, according to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal.

Moody's Investors Service lowered the credit ratings of 15 major banks Thursday, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, saying their long-term prospects for profitability and growth are shrinking. The ratings agency said it was especially concerned about banks with significant financial markets businesses because those markets have become so volatile. Some of the largest European banks were also downgraded, including Barclays, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.