For the month of January, BOA makes $40 bil. mortgage loans.
BoA received an initial $25bn from the Treasury in September. It requested a further $20bn at the end of December as the scale of Merrill’s losses eclipsed BofA’s initial forecasts.
“In hindsight, it was a tactical mistake because it put us in the same category as Citigroup,” said Mr Lewis. “We could still have had 8 per cent tier 1 capital after a $15bn loss but we wanted a cushion.”