Boston, MA 10/17/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) declared healthy third quarter results due to favorable credit conditions and lower expenses. Earnings were $0.20 per share against $0.18 per share expected by analysts. The company had made no profit for the same period last year. Revenues increased to $21.7 billion. Analysts had expected revenues of $20.43 billion. The company had reported revenues of $20.43billion for the same period last year. Revenues from consumer and business banking rose to $7.52 billion with net income of $1.8 billion, a rise of 32%. There was an increase in average deposit balance by $43.9 billion to $522 billion as compared to the figures for the same period last year. Revenues fell 2.6% at Merrill Lynch from the second quarter but were higher by 6.6% as compared to the same period last year. Though money management improved at Merrill Lynch and US Trust; reduced trading activity lead to a fall in revenues. Attrition of trainee brokers contributed to a decrease in number of brokers by 133 to a total of just over 14,000.
The company is on a cost reduction exercise. The company managed to reduce its employees by 3.5% this quarter, more than 2,000 employees were laid off. The company is promoting mobile banking as a convenience tool. Mobile banking through smartphones and mobiles allows customers to pay bills and check balances from anywhere and at any time. There are cost benefits to the bank, as well. Transactions at branches and ATMs get reduced, allowing the bank to do more work with lesser branches and tellers. The company saw an increase of 26% in their mobile banking customer base. There are now 14 million customers using the company’s mobile banking services.
Quarterly results got a boost from good loan growth, record deposit balances, improved credit quality along with cost reduction measures. The shares ended 2.25% higher at $14.56 on the close of trading on October 16, 2013.
