Bank Of America Beats 1Q Estimates, Mobile Makes Double-Digit Gains

Continuing the run of earnings beats for banks, Bank of America announced news on Monday (April 16) that loan growth helped lift results above Wall Street estimates, while digital initiatives showed strong momentum.

CEO Brian Moynihan said in the earnings release that “strong client activity, coupled with a growing global economy and solid U.S. consumer activity, led to record quarterly earnings.”

Earnings of $0.62 a share beat the Street by two pennies.

Consolidated revenues of $2.3 billion also topped the Street by $40 million.

Revenue for the segment tied to consumer banking gained 9 percent to $864 billion.

Active mobile banking users, the company said, grew by 12 percent to 24.8 million.

The combined credit and debit spend was up 9 percent year over year to $137 billion.

Digital sales, the company said, stood at 26 percent of all consumer banking business. $682 billion in total payments processed showed $365 billion in digital payments.

Mobile channel usage was up 32 percent to 1.4 billion interactions. As many as 24 percent of deposit transactions were done via mobile device, which the company said is equal to 1,280 financial centers.

The company also provided some illumination on Zelle, the peer-to-peer banking service, where 28.6 million transactions were processed, doubling the rate seen last year.

As for credit quality, Bank of America said in its release that “overall credit quality remained strong across both the consumer and commercial portfolios.”

The net charge-off ratio was down slightly to 40 basis points from 42 basis points a year ago. Loss provisions were down $1 million to $834 million, while the overall allowance for loan and lease losses stood at 1.11 percent, down from 1.3 percent last year.