Bank of America makes $7.3bn loss

Taking out the one-off charge, the results were better than analysts had expected

A one-off charge has left Bank of America – the US’s biggest bank – with a loss of $7.3bn (£4.8bn) for the third quarter of the year.

The charge – of more than $10bn – is designed to reflect the lower value of its credit and debit card business whose profits will be affected by new regulations curbing charges.

The bank had warned it would make the charge in its last earnings report.

Bank of America also said it planned to change its consumer banking strategy.

It said it would focus on giving customers incentives to do more business with the bank, rather than generating revenue through penalty fees, like overdraft charges.

Excluding the one-time charge, Bank of America’s earnings report showed it made $3.1bn in the three months ending in September, far better than analysts were expecting.

That was largely because of a sharp drop in losses tied to defaulting loans.

In the third quarter of last year, the bank reported a loss of $2.2bn.

Its results mirror those of JP Morgan and Citigroup, which were also better than expected.

Bank of America and other banks have been stung in recent weeks by accusations that they failed to review properly documents used in repossessions – so-called robo-signings.

Bank of America had stopped repossessions in all 50 states, but said on Monday that it would resume proceedings in 23 states after reviewing its cases there.

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