Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) reported first-quarter financial results before the market open on Wednesday. The transcript from the company’s first-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Operator

Hello and welcome everyone joining today’s Bank of America of America earnings announcement. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the question and answer session. To register to ask a question at any time, please press star1 on your telephone keypad. Please note this call is being recorded. We are standing by if you should need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Leigh McIntyre of Bank of America.

Lee McEntire (Senior Vice President)

Good morning. Thank you. Thanks for joining us to talk through our first quarter results. As always, the earnings release and presentation are posted on the Investor relations section of bankofamerica.com and we’ll reference those materials during the call. Brian will start us off with a few opening thoughts and then Alistair will walk through the quarter and provide more detail on the results. Before we begin, quick reminder that during the call we may make forward looking statements and refer to non GAAP financial measures. Those reflect management’s current views and are subject to risks and uncertainties which are outlined along with the relevant GAAP reconciliations in our earnings material and the SEC filings on our website. With that, Brian over to you.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Good morning and thank you for joining us, all. It’s our earnings report for the first quarter of 2026. I’m going to begin on slide two. Bank of America delivered strong first quarter 2026 results. Revenue grew 7% year over year to 30.3 billion. Earnings per share were up 25% year over year to $1.11 per share. This performance was driven by balanced results across our businesses. Continued operating leverage, solid client activity and stable to modestly improved asset quality. We also saw solid year over year growth in both loans and deposits. Our capital liquidity positions remain strong and well above current regulatory requirements. Along the bottom of slide 2 you can see the progress against some of our most important operating metrics. We delivered operating leverage of 290 basis points this quarter. The efficiency ratio for our company improved 170 basis points year over year at 61%. And importantly, we generated return on tangible common equity or ROTCE of 16%. The biggest highlight I can provide you as you flip to slide three. There you can see that every segment of the company contributed to our year over year growth. Every segment grew revenue, every segment grew earnings, every segment grew average deposits and every segment grew loans. And every segment drove strong returns. Now moving to slide four. Let me talk about some of the primary drivers of results before Alistair takes you through additional details. First, net interest income performed better than expected on an FTE basis net interest income was 15.9 billion, up 9% year over year. Second, our fee based markets facing businesses performed well. Markets, wealth and investment banking all show good momentum. Client activity remained healthy and revenues in each of these areas grew at double digit rates compared to the first quarter 2025. Third, our team continued to manage expenses well. We reported non expense of 18.5 billion in the first quarter, which was in line with the roughly 4% year over year increase we discussed on our last earnings quarterly earnings call Let me just spend a few moments on expense and how we think about them in the context of delivering growth and returns for our shareholders. As we said consistently, our focus is on delivering durable earnings and returns. Expense discipline is embedded in how we run our company. It’s also one of the reasons we’re able to convert scale productivity and macro tailwinds and operating leverage over time. In the quarter. The first quarter our expenses reflected deliberate choices we made. First, we continue to invest in our revenue producing capabilities. Whether it’s relationship managers in all the businesses, new branches, technology of all types delivered throughout the platform and product enhancements of all types. All those support the client activity, market share gains and long term earnings power of this company. These investments are return on investment driven. They’re tied to businesses where you see clear demand and attractive returns. The second thing we do is we continue to offset those investments through productivity and simplification. The continued digitization of activities by our clients and inside our company. The application of artificial intelligence, the detailed process re engineering, all help reduce manual work, lowered unit costs, limited increase in our base cost structure. That’s why even as we’ve invested, we continue to deliver positive operating. It’s simply put that our revenue growth rate is faster than our expense growth rate. Third, we remained highly disciplined in non strategic spend. We are conscious not to add complexity layers or fixed costs that don’t support the clients and what they need from us. That discipline is part of our responsible growth culture has been going on for many years. If you think about that in terms of headcount, we are down about 1070 people from year end 2025 through attrition and we’ll continue to drive that. We continue to heavily extend the franchise, deepen the client relations and deliver attractive terms. And we’re doing it While reducing those full-time employees (FTEs) and absorbing costs and inflationary cost out in the market. Turning briefly to asset quality, we saw improvement from last year. Net charge offs, car delinquencies, reservable criticized assets and non performing loans or all declined versus the first quarter 25 provision expense was 1.3 billion compared to 1.5 billion last year reflecting continued benign credit results. Finally, capital generation remains strong. We continue to deploy excess capital to support RWA grow across all the businesses while returning capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We ended the quarter with a strong capital position and including $200 billion plus of CET1 capital. We also continue to benefit from the many quarters of organic growth across our businesses. We include our standard organic growth view beginning on slide 19 and following in the appendix I commend you to look at those across all the different business lines. All the activity and all the digital activity are there. All that activity remains a key differentiator for us, driving continued growth in deposits, improve investment assets, lending balances and trading counterparty. This combines with that strong engagement across our digital platforms and we believe driving ongoing share gains in targeted markets and products. Overall results again demonstrate the value of our diversified earnings stream, the growth and durability of all our businesses across different environments and in the end is a strong performance by our team here at bank of America and I thank them for another great quarter. Before I turn to Alistair to go through a few observations go through the quarter, I’m going to give you a few observations we see about the economy beginning on slide 5. We have two things at bank of America to help us view the economy. First is our very strong research team and they provide great data to us based on their view of the world. And you can see that on the left hand side of the slide 5. But we also couple that with our internal data, what our customers really do both on the consumer side, corporate side, small business side, et cetera. And you can see that on the consumer expressed on the right-hand side of the slide. Our research team continues to see the economy that is resilient, that the core activities economy continue to push along even with all the uncertainty that you’ve all written about out there. We see the forward look of GDP growth rates in the US around 2% and we see a faster growth rate around the world. When you look at the inflation you can see in the lower left you can see that the projection is for it to be remain elevated in 26 and into 27 and we both at the US basis and a global basis. But when you look on the right you can see where the resilience comes from in the US the US consumer continues to spend 3 through all its different platforms here at bank of America. To put that in context, the total Spending by consumers across all the ways they move money into the US economy of bank of America is 4.5 trillion a year for 2025. You can see that was up 5% from 2024 and that 5% growth has been consistent in 1Q26 compared to 1Q25. And during that quarter customers moved a trillion dollars plus into the economy. As you look on the lower right, you can see the debit and credit card spending was up 6% year over year. This totals about 25% of the ways consumers spend money at bank of America. If you look within the categories, you can see it’s up in entertainment and services and travel and retail and yes, it’s up in gas prices. And we know that in March it was up 16% year over year. At the same time we look at this data and see what it tells us. We also are mindful of all the risk out there, the ongoing conflicts in the Middle east, including implications for the energy market, inflation and growth. We look at global trade flows and broader financial conditions. To date these impacts have been measured and absorbed by the economies here and around the world and we continue to watch them carefully. Looking ahead, our research team expects moderate US and global growth over the next several years and our data supports that view. In this environment, I’m asked if the capital markets activity has really inflected or is this just the volatility producing the results that our markets team produced or our investment banking team? What we’re seeing is improved breadth in our global businesses, not just episodic activity. Trading has benefited from volatility. In fact, this is the 15th quarter we have year over year revenue growth, but more importantly, investment banking pipelines are building and engagement is up across all products. Tone of our corporate clients is strong. While they wonder about all the things I spoke about earlier, they continue to conduct strong activity. That activity is healthier than a year ago and supports a continued constructive fee environment in our view. While those risks are out there, the macro backdrop remains constructive and a diversified business model position is well due to continue to deliver for you across a range of economic scenarios. With that context, I’ll turn it over to Alistair for you more details.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks Brian. I’m going to begin with the balance sheet starting on slide 6. You can see total assets ended the quarter at approximately $3.5 trillion up 2% linked quarter reflecting loan growth, deposit growth and balance sheet to support our clients. Increased activity in global markets deposits increased to more than 2 trillion driven by continued strength in both commercial and consumer client engagement. Common shareholders equity was approximately $276 billion and relatively stable quarter over quarter as earnings generation was more than offset by the capital we returned to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. This quarter we paid 2 billion in common dividends and we bought back 7.2 billion of common shares. From a regulatory perspective, the CET1 capital ratio declined 14 basis points to 11.2% and that decline primarily reflects the capital returned to shareholders above earnings generation as well as balance sheet growth and mix change in support of our clients, and our ratio remains well above regulatory requirements. Looking ahead, we don’t have any meaningful updates to report on the recently proposed Basel III endgame or G SIB capital changes as proposed, Basel III would result in modestly higher capital requirements. However, the proposed changes to the G SIB surcharge are expected to more than offset the Basel III endgame impact for US G SIBs. Taken together, if Basel III endgame and G SIB frameworks are adopted as proposed, we believe bank of America is likely to see some reduction in overall capital requirements relative to the current regime in future periods and the public comment period concludes in mid June and we look forward to the finalization of the rules Liquidity remains strong with global liquidity sources of more than 960 billion well above regulatory requirements and now as we go a little deeper on the balance sheet, we’ll focus on loans and deposits. So start with deposits on slide 7 where our franchise continues to demonstrate strength, stability and discipline. Average deposits remained solid during the quarter, increasing approximately 59 billion year over year or 3%, reflecting the depth of our client relationships and the value customers place on safety, liquidity and convenience, particularly in an environment where rates and market conditions remain dynamic. It’s notable that both interest bearing and non interest bearing deposits grew 3%. Growth was led by commercial clients, while consumer banking grew more modestly, marking its fourth consecutive quarter now of year over year growth, composition of our deposits remains a key differentiator. We benefit from a high quality mix with a meaningful portion in low cost operational balances and strong engagement across consumer wealth and commercial clients. That mix has continued to benefit our funding costs even as pricing competition persists across the industry. The total rate paid on our deposits declined 16 basis points to 1.47% and this allows us to maintain one of the lowest cost funding profiles among the large US banks. Turning to loans on slide 8, average balances grew nearly 9% year over year, driven primarily by client demand in our commercial portfolios. That growth was broad based and it reflects good core operating client activity. And as always, we remain disciplined in how we deploy our capital, prioritizing returns, credit quality and relationship depth over volume. Consumer loan balances were up about 4% year over year including 3% credit card growth. Wealth management contributed nicely to consumer loan growth through strong securities based lending and across both consumer and commercial portfolios. The credit performance remained consistent with our expectations and we’ve not changed our risk posture. We remain highly liquid. We’re focused on protecting our margin and preserving flexibility while continuing to support our clients. Let’s turn to net interest income on Slide 9 in the first quarter net interest income on a fully taxable equivalent basis was $15.9 billion on a year. Over year NII increased by 1.3 billion or 9% driven by growth in average loans and deposits, the ongoing benefit of fixed rate asset repricing and higher global markets, client related activity and those tailwinds were partially offset by the impact of lower average rates in the quarter compared to Q4. NII was materially flat and reflected similar underlying benefits that were nearly enough to offset the negative impact of 2 fewer days of interest accrual in Q1. Net interest yield for the quarter was 2.07%, up 8 basis points year over year reflecting disciplined balance sheet management, funding optimization and the continued benefit of repricing dynamics even as rates declined across the curve. Regarding interest rate sensitivity, we continue to provide a 12 month dynamic deposit based sensitivity relative to the forward curve and on that basis an additional 100 basis point decline in rates beyond the forward curve would reduce NII over the next 12 months by $2 billion while a 100 basis point increase would benefit NII by a little less than $500 million. Looking ahead, while the rate environment remains dynamic, we continue to see multiple levers supporting NII including balance growth, funding optimization and the ongoing roll off of lower yielding assets. Given our outperformance against expectations of NII in Q1 and based on the most recent interest rate curve which has now shifted from two rate cuts expected to having none, Currently we’re raising our full year NII growth guidance range for 2026 versus 2025 to be up 6 to 8% and that outlook continues to assume moderate deposit and loan growth. Turning to expenses on Slide 10 in the first quarter non interest expense was 18.5 billion. That was up 4% and consistent with the guidance we provided on our Q4 earnings call, we generated 290 basis points of operating leverage and that translated into measurable improvement in both our efficiency ratio from 63% to 61 and an increase in the ROTCE to 16%. We continue to manage our cost base with discipline while investing selectively to support client activity and long term growth. The year over year increase in expense largely reflects double digit revenue growth in investment banking, asset management, fees and sales and trading and the associated higher revenue related incentives and transaction expenses. Stepping back Our approach here remains unchanged. We’re investing where returns are clear, we tightly manage the discretionary spend and we maintain our sharp focus on operating leverage, including expanding our use of technology and AI to improve operational efficiency and sales effectiveness. Looking ahead, we continue to expect more than 200 basis points of positive operating leverage for the year consistent with our prior guidance, and we also have levers that preserve our flexibility to help navigate changing market conditions as required. Let’s turn to slide 11 for a discussion of asset quality. Credit performance remained stable and consistent with our expectations. Net charge offs were approximately $1.4 billion with a net loss rate of 48 basis points. Both of those were down ong momentum was led by MA with equity capital markets also up very nicely in the quarter. The year over year investment banking performance is particularly notable given our prior year first quarter included gains related to leveraged finance positions that didn’t repeat this year. Balance sheet growth remained a strength and you can see average loans increased 5% year over year with all lines of business contributing. Deposits increased 13% year over year reflecting continued client engagement across the franchise and rates paid was down linked quarter and year over year. Returns remained strong with return on capital of 16% which was higher year over year. Turning to Global Markets on slide 16, I’ll focus my remarks as usual. Ex DVA and Global Market’s strong first quarter was driven by robust client activity and disciplined risk management in a volatile trading environment heightened by geopolitical uncertainty. Revenues ex DVA were $7 billion, up 7% year over year where sales and trading had its strongest performance in a decade, increasing 12% to $6.3 billion, led primarily by equities performance and despite the noted volatility, we had no trading loss days during the quarter. Equities had their best quarter ever with revenues up 30% year over year reflecting increased client activity and capital extended to the business for growth. The increase was driven by client financing activity, particularly in Asia, as well as strong trading performance in derivatives FICC results remained strong and were modestly higher with strength in commodities partially offset by lower revenue and FX and interest rate products. Net income was $2 billion, which was up modestly from strong results in Q1.25. That also included roughly $230 million in gains related to leverage finance positions. Higher revenues were offset by increased expenses on higher activity levels, increased people costs and our continued investment in this business. Average assets grew 14% year over year to 1.1 trillion, reflecting higher inventory levels and strong client balances. Returns remain solid with a 15% return on capital. Overall, global markets continues to deliver for our clients, producing consistent profitability, continued revenue momentum, and it reinforces the durability of the franchise across different and challenging market environments. On slide 17, all others shows a modest profit of roughly $100 million in Q1 with very little to cover here. So as I wrap up, I’ll Just note the Q1 effective tax rate was 17.5%. That was seasonally lower, reflecting the annual vesting of employee share based awards. And as a reminder, for the full year 2026, we expect an effective tax rate of just a little more than 20%. So in closing, 1Q26 reflected continued revenue momentum, disciplined execution and improved efficiency and returns. Our diversified business model, strong balance sheet and prudent risk management position us well for the remainder of the year. And with that we’ll open up the line. For questions. Please. Leo.

Operator

Thank you. If you’d like to ask a question, press Star one on your keypad. To leave the queue at any time, press Star two. Once again, that is Star one to ask a question and we’ll pause for just a moment to allow everyone a chance to join the queue. Thank you. Our first question comes from Manan Gosalia with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Morgan Stanley Analyst

Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First up, just on the expense side, you know, the stronger NII guide was great to see and you’re keeping the expense guide, but you’re also keeping the operating leverage guide. I know there’s some level of rounding in here, but how do you think about dropping the benefit of the beta NII to the bottom line? Manant, thanks for the question. We did this quarter and we expect that the NI will drop to the bottom line and so if it goes up, you’d expect us to see a higher end of the operating leverage range like we did this quarter. Got it. Perfect. And then maybe on the on the ROTC side. So I guess you’ve already delivered on a 16% ROTC within the 16 to 18% target. How do you think about staying within that range in the near term as you deliver on the operating leverage? And are there any one timers anything else we should be considering for this quarter?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

So Manon, I don’t think there’s any one timers to consider here. We provided that guidance of a medium term range for ROTCE over the course of the medium term. And look, every quarter is going to be different. We’re obviously gratified with 16% based on the strong operating leverage performance. But the key for us as a management team is just keep moving up the ladder. A couple years ago it was 13%, then 14. Every quarter will be different. We just got to keep making progress towards our goal and that remains our focus as a management team.

Morgan Stanley Analyst

Great, thank you. Thank you.

Operator

We’ll now move on to Glenn Shore with Evercore.

Evercore Analyst

Please go ahead. Hi, thanks so much. Maybe an Easy High Level 1 on the consumer. I think your spending is so good, employment and wages have been strong. So the easy question is why do you think loan and deposit growth in the consumer side is slow, sluggish? It’s not like you’re not opening new checking accounts, new credit card accounts. Just curious on the high level there.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Well Glenn, I think if we look back over time on the deposit side, what’s been interesting we talked about three or four years ago, at some point after the deposits were seeking higher yield, consumer would begin to find its floor. When you look at what’s happening right now, you can see now four quarters in a row of year over year deposit growth. So it looks like we’re finding that floor and beginning to grow out of it. You can also see if you look at our numbers, growth in non interest bearing and a little bit more this quarter than we’ve seen in the prior quarter. So the elements that are sort of saying it’s beginning to pick up now. Obviously there’s an interest rate environment, there’s a spend environment that go against deposits. But it feels to us like the consumer part, which is so powerful, is beginning to turn and grow and at the beginnings of accelerating. That’s kind of where we are in the longer arc on the lending side. You know, we’re in a period right now where unemployment’s good, home prices are good, asset prices are good, savings remain elevated. So the lending is pretty broad based within consumer. But you’re getting 3 or 4% growth there. Can we see more over time? Yes, but at this point I think relative to how the consumer is performing, we’re in a good place. Only final thing I’ll just say is we’ve talked about the fact that we’ve got to focus on our own balance sheet efficiency. We’ve talked about the fact that we’ve got the ability over time just to allow some of the retail and the institutional CDs to pay off. And we’ve sort of done that so we don’t have to chase CDs at this point. That in turn has meant that we’ve been very disciplined on rate paid, so we could put up more deposit growth if we wanted to. But we’re really choosing at this point to just maximize the core operating client account activity. That’s what we’re focused on.

Evercore Analyst

Well, I think it’s working. That’s cool. I appreciate that. It’s interesting you guys mentioned that headcount’s down over 1,000 this year. If I look over the last five years, it’s kind of flattish. But there’s a lot underneath the covers. Right. You’re adding in growth areas, you’re subtracting some other areas. And I think your attrition rate’s more like 7%. So maybe can you talk about some of the puts and takes where you’re adding, where you’re shrinking? And obviously the question of how I might where are you in the AI journey in terms of how that might bring a little bit larger headcount reduction or not replacing all the attrition going forward?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Glenn. The long arc, if you look in 2007, before we bought Maryland Countrywide, to give you a sense of, we had more employees at bank of America than we have today. And so the application of technology to process and the customer utilization of our technology has let us basically run the company 19 years later on less people. And so this is not a new trend. What you’re seeing now is the continuation of those trends. And you’re right. So as we showed you Investor Day, we showed you shorter term. We showed headcount down 80,000. We showed 50,000 out of the consumer set of businesses, 25,000 out of ops. What we’re seeing now, during that time, we made massive investments in technologists and cybersecurity from a few hundred people to three thousand people, et cetera, et cetera, new branches. So we continue to shift investment. That went on again this quarter where you saw headcount drift down out of the operational process and managers and things like that. And that investment goes into developing more headcount and relationship manager businesses across the board. And so we’ll continue to do that, to support the growth of the businesses. So we’re doing it through attrition. Each month we have to hire 1,300 people. Round numbers to stay neutral in the company. And so you can adjust the headcount by just being careful on hiring and let attachment be your friend, as we call it. And that’s how we got down 1,000 people. But it comes from eliminating work and applying technology and consumer and commercial customers. Using those technologies and AI gives us places to go we haven’t gone. And we’ve got 90 installations working. All 200,000 teammates have access to AI or can use it every day. Erica is more understood out there, but it’s been brought across lots of platforms that the models and so. So we’re still in the early stages of what all this will do, but we’re seeing real benefits out of it today.

Operator

Thank you. We’ll now move to John McDonald with Truist Securities.

Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Truist Securities Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. Hey, guys. In terms of capital, with a peek at the new proposals, how are you thinking about a capital target as you strive towards your rotce goals? Just kind of wondering now that you have some, do you have some more incremental comfort in narrowing that management buffer that you have today, which is over 100 basis points to the reg minimums? Thank you, Chair Powell.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, John. Well, I think as we’re getting more and more clarity, you’ve seen us take advantage of that by just allowing the capital ratios to drift down. So we’ll wait ultimately to see what the final rules all look like. But it’s pretty clear to us at this point that, yes, Basel III endgame RWAs will be a little higher. Yes, it appears G sib inflation indexing is going to give us some relief, particularly as you move forward into future periods. So that’s allowed us to do a little bit more buyback. It’s allowed us to put out a little bit more balance sheet, so we’re gaining a little more confidence. But at the end of the day, we’re in a good place right now. We have plenty of capital, plenty of flexibility. We’re earning well now we just got to wait for the final rules.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

John, I think your point about operating closer to the minimums, leave aside everything Alistair talked about and the shifts across time, the new rules, the old rules and the transition, the reality is, as the, you know, as we have studied this, the volatility in our earnings stream under all the stress scenarios that you run every quarter is how we start to think about the, the cushion we have to maintain and that’s that cushion could be tighter to the reg minimum without having the same threats because of stability in the earning streams and the capabilities of the company. So, so we, we brought it from a broader range to a narrower range. Expect us to keep it in the 50 basis points that we said and so if the underlying requirement goes down, you know, the whole number goes down. If not, et cetera. So let it play out a little bit. But there’s no philosophical change in maintaining a decent cushion, but not an overly big cushion. But our fine tuning of that across the last three or four years really is based on the capabilities this company to earn through different things like the COVID regional bank crisis, et cetera. You can see that the volatility is just not there. Right. So what you’re saying, Brian, is the 50 basis point kind of management buffer is over time what you’d expect to gravitate to. Yeah, and we were moving there but you know, we’re taking all earned capital out right. Through dividends and buybacks that then leaves a nominal amount the same and we’re growing the company into it and then we got all these rules and how they’ll be implemented. Remember, there’s step ups and steps down and you know that we’ve got to sort of see play out here. But, but you, you’ve got it right. Just thinking that long term, 50 basis points over the minimum is more what we’re shooting for.

Truist Securities Analyst

Okay. And then Alistair, could you give a little more color on the drivers of the change, the tweak in the NII outlook and more specifically what you’re assum. Modest loan and deposit growth inside of that guide.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so we’re not really changing anything in terms of the loan and deposit growth. We’ve been pretty encouraged with the way that started out the year. So it’s more a continuation of what we’ve seen. But we’ve seen pretty good organic growth, so that’s been good. The rotation is slowing from non interest bearing into interest bearing and in fact non interest bearing picked up a little bit this quarter. So we were happy to see that. So for as long as the loan growth stays there, deposit growth looks good. We lost a couple of rate cuts. Those, those might have hurt us at the back end of the year. They’re not going to hurt us in the same way. So all those things, you add them up, it’s a little bit of all of them. Put a little bit more balance sheet into global markets. So Add it up, that all feels good. And final thing, John, is if you take a look at the loan growth disclosure that we put out, I think it’s on page eight of our release. You’ll see pretty broad based now from each of the lines of business, pretty broad based by each of the products. So we’re not reliant on any one thing. And that gives us a little more confidence around durability. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Operator

We’ll now move on to Jim Mitchell with Seaport Global. Your line is open.

Seaport Global Analyst

Hey, good morning, Alistair. Can you expand on the funding optimization point a little bit? It seems like you had a significant drop in rates paid on non U S deposits.

So overall, how much can you do

on that fund optimization point and how do we think about balance sheet growth in that context?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, so this is something we’ve talked about in prior earnings calls, Jim. So no change to what we’ve been thinking about over the course of the past couple of years. Years we had some, I’ll call it balance sheet puffiness around some of the longer dated CDs and some of the repo activity. And as we go through the course of time, what we believe we can continue to do is just allow those to drift lower, which in turn is good for niy. Probably doesn’t impact NII particularly, but it just we can fund the core growth of the clients while allowing some of that balance sheet puff to come out. So that’s what we’re doing. We’re just sticking to that. You can see the CDs coming down quietly slowly over time, taking some of the repo down quietly slowly over time while still giving more balance sheet to the business for clients. And can you quantify how much you think is left? You know, I think last time we got together we said probably somewhere around 100 billion or so, right? Could be a little more, could be a little less, but it’s in that kind of a number.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Jim, be careful about nominal. In other words, within your balance. We grow core loans within the balance sheet and let other stuff go off, but you know, the total footings are one point, but it’s the what you’re holding within those footings that’s the key point and what liabilities you have within those footings. So I think it was pointed out by one of your colleagues earlier, if you think about deposits in our company and you look at slide 7 and look at the rate drop across the board, we are clearly at the core of core deposits in all the businesses. They have different aspects. Obviously wealth Management business. So core deposits different than mass market consumer business or even a small business versus a large corporation. So large corporations. So look at that page and just think about, you know, we’re sitting with $2 trillion deposits and a trillion tuition loans. And, you know, we’re only going to take the deposits we need. We take the deposits from the customers in line with their core operating capabilities and the core business.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

That’s what we’re focused on. Yep. No, absolutely. And on the, on the CNI side, Alistair, you mentioned that more traditional CNI growth has picked up. Is that an early read on taking some share from private credit given disruptions there Is it simply just broadly improving demand and an improvement in credit line utilization. It’s mostly credit line utilization this quarter. So at the end of Q4, we saw a little bit of revolver paydown, which probably took our loan balances down. We still grew loans in Q4, but the growth wasn’t quite as high because the revolver utilization came down. It just came back. And a little bit more in Q1. So we probably picked up 5 to 10 billion of loan growth just from revolver draws. So it’s sort of core middle market activity, building working capital across corporate America and internationally. That’s where we saw the growth.

Seaport Global Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We’ll now move on to Mike Mayo with Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.

Wells Fargo Analyst

Hi. What a difference a footer makes. I think what I hear you saying is that you feel better about the short term and you can correct that. But you got the 16% ROTC you’re guiding NII higher. You have 290 base points of view or opting leverage. So I think you’re saying the short term better. But since the last earnings report, there’s been concerns about the long term. Right. That AI agents will come and take your deposits, that AI bad actors will commit cyber crimes against you, that AI spend will not bear fruit. So I know you guys have Erica and caspro and gen AI at over 4000 patents and you know, as you brought up less employees since 2007 and also, you know, some other advantages there. But as you think about that debate, the long term debate about AI, you being a victim or you being a beneficiary, why is bank of America an AI beneficiary? And if you could just frame it some way, I know the question was asked already, but you know, revenues per employee, how much would you expect that to increase? Or you know, something around that?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you. Like Mike, I think in your question you gave the answer which is we are a beneficiary of the impacts of all technology, including AI. We’ve applied it and we’ll continue to apply it. Our team’s job and we’ve got catalyst efforts going on on a corporate wide basis to bring all the ideas to bear. Our team’s job is to benefit from the technology. It creates issues about cyber security and things like that that you’re reading about in the paper and we take those extremely seriously and invested heavily to do it and work with our industry colleagues and colleagues in other industries to ensure the safety and security of our architecture. But there will always be positive pressure on the earnings due to the application technology. And AI gives us a lot of efforts there. There’s nothing new and different about the ability to move deposits. You can move them, we can move them in our company instantaneously to other, you know, off balance sheet, on balance sheet rates. So the question is what are the deposits for? And I think what gets lost in all this discussion is a little bit the reflection of the earlier discussion on deposit rate paid is we have the deposits, computer people have their transaction accounts with us. They’re moving money. The CD and at the market deposit practice in our company is a small part of what we do to drive the economic value. And our job is to stay with our customers to be the core depository institution and transactional bank with them as well as their lending bank. And we feel very strongly that we will not only take advantage of AI, it will help us drive even greater market share and capabilities in the future.

Wells Fargo Analyst

I guess as a follow up to that, I guess you remind me like the primary checking account I think is what you’re saying is very sticky. How can you use AI to improve the trust of customers? Whether it’s with the cyber risk. I’m not sure if you one of the CEOs went down to D.C. or just trust with data and identity and the relationships. Thanks.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Sure. I think the trust in our customer scores in our institution are all time highs. And the trust they see in the way we use data and the way we use information. Frankly some of the gates on our adoption of some of these technologies are we’re protecting customer data where other people are not. And that’s been a constant struggle from cloud computing into the. So we keep our data out of the models we keep so that our customer data, et cetera and take advantage of models coming into us but not feeding them. And that’s what we owe our customers. We feel we’re in a great trusted position. We spent a lot of time, effort and money over the years, making sure we get to what we call never down and continue to deploy hot, hot, hot backups and systems that will step in for each other. We work with the industry to ensure that that goes throughout the other platforms, the FMUs and things like that. So if you ask our customers, you know, our digital capabilities, our technology capabilities, and the trust in this is as high as it’s ever been. Matter of fact, it’s higher than it’s ever been and it’s growing literally month after month after month. So we feel good about that.

Wells Fargo Analyst

And then last follow up, just in five years from now, we look back and say, okay, AI tech, where should we see the benefits? Is it just the stickiness of the relationships or is it efficiency or where should that show up?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

So if you think about today, just on the consumer side, Mike, because two things, one, you said the core deposit account. There’s a core deposit account, it’s a core investment account, it’s a core corporate transactional account, it’s a core borrowing home. So each of these core is what you’re seeking, not just growth overall. So I just want to make sure it’s broader. But if you say five years from now and think about it, I think you’ll see the same elements. We should continue to see more and more digital or AI generated interfaces of the client. But I think AI really helps us internally just to make it straightforward. 99% round numbers of all the interactions we have with our consumers are digital already. So there’s no person involved. So as you start to think about that, you go the inverse. The cost of that 1% is a pretty high number and we’re working on that with all this technology and we’re working on the efficiency Even of the 99% in house delivered example of that is Erica versus alerts. Alerts are basically instead of doing prompts and asking questions, we’re using the same technology to deliver to you a constant flow of information that saves the interface on the prompts and things and also allows it to be more interactive with the customers. So in the AI intelligence and technology, intelligence is not different, so it’ll be more of it. You know, I think at the end of the day, if you think about from seven till now, the same number of people we’ll be plowing into the front end where relationship managers matter. The high touch piece which is critically important delivery. You’ll see us keep adding there and you’ll see us keep taking out of the activities that are not directly facing the customer. But even on the customer facing with 90,000 Salesforce moving to Agent Force and AI and prep, we’ll get more efficient on that too. So I’m not going to give you exactly because you know that’s fraught with air because it never quite works out that way. But the trends will be more technology, more intimacy with the customers, more agentic versus prompt, more built into the process rather than have it be delivered by teammates doing something that is it’s part of the process. More customers doing more with us and expense will be and the operating leverage will be there.

Wells Fargo Analyst

All right, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We’ll now move on to Erika Najarian with UBS. Your line is open.

UBS Analyst

Hi, good morning. Just two quick follow up questions for me. First on the net interest income outlook. As we think about the possibility of no rate cuts, how should we think about how BofA is going to handle deposit costs in that scenario? Could deposit costs be contained, particularly given sort of the loan growth in the market’s balance sheet if the Fed doesn’t cut?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

I think so. I mean if the rates aren’t moving, I don’t see a great deal of impetus for us to be changing what we’re paying in the interest bearing side. And then it’ll just be a question of which of the two categories grows faster, interest bearing and non interest bearing. As I pointed out right now we’ve got a little bit of growth in both, so that’s helpful. Have to watch that over the course of the year. But even with two rate cuts no longer in the period in the second half doesn’t make a great deal of difference because you’re really talking about one cut for six months, one for three months in the old version. So we’ll be a slight beneficiary of that. But the main thing going on is just organic growth of the company. Got it. And just a very technical question on some of the capital reform proposals. This sort of came to everyone’s attention when one of your peers reported yesterday fully appreciate that the regulators are trying to address retrospective inflation with the coefficient changes. But companies like bank of America, in theory based on your 2020 5G SIB score, are set to go up by January 1, 2028. Now clearly a lot of that growth was related to the economy and your risk density continues to go down as you think about the comment period, is that something you would address? Because obviously there’s 90 days and there’s a lot of dialogue, I’m sure going on between the industry, but I thought that was Particularly notable in terms of that 2025 score, potentially bringing your G Sib up, you know, by January 2028, despite the positive revision on the

UBS Equity Analyst

Got it. And Brian, fantastic job on addressing the efficiency questions very clearly earlier in the call.

Operator

Well, now move on to Ken Usden with Autonomous Research. Your line is now open.

Autonomous Research Equity Analyst

Thanks a lot. Yeah, just one follow up with a great start on the 9% growth in NII and you took up the range to 6 to 8. I’m just wondering Alistair, just as you look through the year, why couldn’t the first year growth rate stay there? Are there any either comp things or shifts in kind of the expectations around markets related nii from NII to fees given the higher for longer. Any other point that we should just be mindful of or is it just in the year.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

There’s a lot that could still play out. Thanks. Well, it’s a little bit of that. It’s early in the year. We’ll see how it plays out. But it’s also a little bit of recognition that last year we had a bigger second half just because of the shape of the fixed rate asset repricing that took place and we just got a little bit less of fixed rate asset repricing taking place in the second half of this year. So it’s really a year over year comps thing that we’re looking at now. By the way, the organic growth continues to pick up. Can we do better? Of course. But that’s why we give you as much guidance as we can each quarter based on what we actually see. That’s fair. And then on Brian’s point about the great start to operating leverage 290 and same kind of question like you did great in holding the line on cost and I know you’re trying to not focus this on a cost guide per se but.

Autonomous Research Equity Analyst

But is the demonstration of that flexibility going to be the ultimate driver of the incremental to get you from one side of the 200 to 300 to potentially the higher side. I just kind of wonder, just can you keep this range reasonably tight on the expense growth trajectory?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks. Yeah. So we provided a guidance on operating leverage looking forward over a three to five year period and said we’re aiming for 200 to 300 basis points. If we can do more, we will. Every quarter is going to look different because your comparable versus last year will look different, the growth will look different. And so we just, we recognize we have to have a range because it’s not going to be the same every single quarter. That’s one point. Second, the main thing that we have to do on the expense side is just be really disciplined on headcount because that remains 60 to 70% of the cost base when you really think about it. So you’re going to look at the headcount that’s going to give you a pretty Good idea. As to whether or not we’re really focused on the core operating expense and being disciplined there. And then you’ve got revenue related expense. Many of those are good, those are good expenses. We don’t want to have to apologize for that. That’s why we focus people on the operating leverage. Because when the assets under management fees are going up 15%, when investment banking’s going up 20%, when the sales and trading is going up 12%, those are good things and with them come good costs. So that’s what we’re managing on the operating leverage. We had a good quarter this quarter. We’re on to the next. We’re figuring out how we can do 200 and higher this next quarter.

Operator

We’ll now move to Chris McGrady with ABW. Your line is now open.

ABW Equity Analyst

Good morning everybody. I’m interested in an update on the wealth strategy relative to the NNA targets laid out in November. Any recruiting or retention commentary would be great. Thanks.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

So I think we. So two things. We’ll update those targets, you know, not every quarter just because they’re longer term targets, medium term, long term targets on net new growth, on recruiting. I think the team’s doing a very good job and we’re getting, getting in, I think double the amount of advisors this year, first quarter as we did last year, something like that. But importantly, the attrition of the advisors is down to low level and it’s a net benefit of that. So we feel that Lindsey and Eric and Katie in the private bank are all well on the way to driving those metrics to where they should go. And the business, you know, had nice operating profit which it will do when markets year over year up, it’s nice pickup. And the margin continues to improve year over year up a couple hundred basis points. So they’ve done a good job. Importantly, you can look on the organic growth pages, you’ll see some pieces in there about account checking accounts and rounding out the relationship and the loan growth and wealth management has been very strong for the last year or so. So we feel very good about it. We’ll update you on those when we do more of a general update for the company. And we feel good. Great.

Barclays Analyst

Thanks, Brian. And then the popular question this quarter has been durability of trading revenues. I’m interested in how you see the potential of the firm to grow trading revenues and the mix within trading over the next near to the medium term. Thanks.

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Well, we still feel good about it. I mean this is another quarter where we allocated a little bit more in the way of resources to the team, they delivered with another 15% return on allocated capital. And at the end of the day we’ve got a big global diversified set of businesses in global markets. Equities did very well this quarter. Commodities did well this quarter. Our international businesses came through this quarter. So, you know, this is what you have. When you’ve got a nice portfolio of businesses, activity can move from one to another, still end up with 12% sales and trading increases year over year. So we’ve obviously invested a lot. We’ll continue to invest in this business. The client activity remains robust. There’s a lot going on in the world and people have to think about then their financing and their risk management and repositioning. So we’ve clearly been beneficiary of our client activity as well. But we feel good about the business and we’ll keep investing. Thanks, Alistair.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Thank you.

Operator

We’ll move next to Gerard Cassidy with RBC Capital Markets.

RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Your line is open. Thank you. Hi, Brian. Hi, Alistair. Hi there. How are you? Good, thank you. Alistair, you talked about the loan growth and how the utilization rates have come up a bit. You also mentioned about the consumer growth in the quarter, or maybe Brian did, about 4%.

The question I have is we’re starting to hear from a few banks that the underwriting standards might be getting stretched. And I know you guys emphasize you’re sticking to your discipline on underwriting standards, but are you guys seeing that in any areas, particularly in the, the global markets lending area? Are people pushing it and you guys are just walking away from stuff maybe more often today than maybe 12 months ago?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

Well, we’ve not seen any of that here and we haven’t detected that elsewhere at this stage.

RBC Capital Markets Analyst

Very good. And then as a follow up, Brian, you talked about the growth of the consumer. You talked about the debit card growth and credit growth. I think it was slide five. We often hear about this K shaped recovery and the lower end struggling with inflation, the higher end better off because of the affluence. What are the risks that may prop up or crop up for the higher end six or 12 months from now? Everybody’s always focused on that lower end concern. Should there be some concerns at the higher end or what could they be?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

I think at the end of the day, whether you talk about credit quality or the ability to spend money, it’s always going to come back to. For the broad base of American population that’s critical to the economy. They’re working and so are unemployment levels. Staying in the four and a half range and et cetera. And then is wage growth there? And I think wage growth has been solid among all the different parts of the earning spectrum. And the question will be will wage growth continue? And both those things have, you know, up until this quarter you’re staying, you know, spending grow among all those parts of the economy just at a faster rate in the, we look at a third, a third, a third, a third in the lower income strata, middle income high. And you look at it’s growing everywhere at a faster rate than middle and high. But the wage growth has been solid across all those populations and so the spending ought to be there. So I, I would just keep watching the unemployment. New claims are up around 200,000 change continuing claims 1.8. They’re levels that they were on a bigger workforce than they were in pre pandemic. And so until those move, I don’t see anything that interrupts the actual spending capability of all the consumers. And I know often people say you’re optimistic. I, I’m giving what we see today in the spending even in early April here. And that’s the critical thing, what they do, not what they say they’re going to do. And that’s going to be dictated more am I employed? Do I have a job? Are my wages growing? And I feel that my money is being well spent and that’s where inflation can make them shift money around but not necessarily stop it. Very good. And I assume you guys are watching the tax refunds which are coming in better than expected, which obviously will bolster consumer spending as well. Thank you.

Jefferies Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. Follow up on loan pipelines and borrower sentiment. On the commercial side, are you observing any change in borrower behavior given the Middle east tensions? Were the line utilization drawdowns, defensive or normal course of business type of drawdowns?

Brian Moynihan (Chief Executive Officer)

These were not panic draws. This has generally been BAU working capital type of activity at this stage.

So when we got together at Investor Day, we laid out number one, the magnitude, number two, the time period. You can think about it, David, as five years. So it’s not going to be one quarter, it’s going to be every quarter for the, the course of the next five years, assuming rates stay where they are. So we laid out pretty good disclosure there. I would encourage you just to take a look at that. What you’ll see is we put it in three different buckets. One was the residential mortgage, the auto loans that come off our balance sheet with clients every quarter and new ones that come on. We laid it out in terms of Treasuries and mortgage backed securities in our securities portfolio that will mature and we reprice every quarter. And then we laid it out in terms of the cash flow swaps and the hedging activities we do. So it’s pretty good disclosure there. It’s a five year thing. It’s a little bit longer than that. But the majority is, the vast majority is in the next five years. We laid out the numbers that might be helpful.

Jefferies Analyst

Okay, very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Operator

We’ll move on now to Sol Martinez with HSBC. Your line is open.

HSBC Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I want to ask about reserving. I was a little bit surprised that you saw the slight reserve release this quarter given the macro uncertainties. And so I guess how are you factoring in macro volatility, downside case scenarios into reserving? Because it does seem like you take a, you know, a different approach to reserving than maybe some of your peers. You know, I fully agree that you’re under, you know, your track record on credit is comparatively strong. Loss content has been lower than your peers. You see that in the stress test that you guys have highlighted a number of times. But if I look at your reserveratios by segment, but also things like reserve coverage of charge offs, reserve coverage of delinquent loans, it tends to be lower than your peers. So I guess why not be a little bit more conservative in your reserving? And I’m curious, you know, if you agree or disagree with my assessment that maybe you’re, I don’t want to call it more aggressive in reserving, but maybe more realistic in your reserving than some of your peers. But I’m curious, just philosophically, you know, your approach here on reserving and why not be a little bit more, you know, a little bit more conservative in terms of your serving?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Okay, so first, I don’t think we have any difference in the way we think about reserving relative to anyone else. We all operate under the same CECL methodology. We all operate in the same way. Second, I’d say in terms of whether we have lower reserves or allowance tends for most banks to be reflective of the quality of their lending portfolio, the risk they take, and their client selection. So when we show you on slides 20, 21 and 22 how we have transformed the company over the course of the past 15 years, we have a very different risk profile of our lending than many of our peers. So when you look at, for example, on page 20 of the earnings, you’ll see that a lot less consumer unsecured, a lot less of credit card, a lot less of home equity lines, we have a lot more of wealth loans. And when you look at the Federal Reserve stress test loss rate, we’ve been the lowest 13 of the last 14 years, which would tell you we probably should have a lower reserve because we have a more conservative approach to our client selection and the type of risk that we take. So we don’t think we’re any different than other people. We just think we’ve got a higher quality client base and a higher quality loan portfolio. And the final thing I’ll just say is in the course of any given quarter, you might take like for example, this quarter we took 5% out of the upside case, put it in the baseline. So we’re pretty heavily skewed at this point towards a downside case plus baseline. And the only thing that happened to offset that was we had some release from the continued improvement in CRE office where we had built reserve pretty significantly. And as that portfolio has gotten smaller, as we’ve got less and less in the way of NPLS and rescript there, we’ve been able to take some of the reserve back out. So that’s all that’s going on this particular particular quarter. Okay.

HSBC Analyst

No, that’s, that’s helpful. Maybe just a follow up then on NII obviously encouraging to see the guidance increased NIIX markets up about 5% year on year, which is a good number. Obviously lower than 9% but a good number. How should we think about what the 6 to 8 means for growth in NII ex markets? And should we be thinking that global markets NII kind of stabilizes at current levels given that it’s benefited from lower rates? And if we see the Fed on hold here, maybe it kind of sticks around these levels. And also just remind us what proportion of global markets NII is revenue earnings neutral. Because my understanding is this some part of it is not, but it does flow to the bottom line. But is it predominantly offset by higher global markets NII offset by lower global markets non interest revenues. So just any color you can give there, that would be helpful.

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah. So the global markets business NII has benefited over the course of the past couple of years from number one, rates coming lower and number two, continued balance sheet growth. If rates don’t go lower, that engine for global markets NII growth won’t be there. So you can almost think that going forward, more and more of the NII growth is going to come from global banking, consumer and global wealth, and less of it is probably coming from global markets. And then in terms of the nii, there will be quarters where a little bit of the NII is offset in mmsa. Last quarter happened to be one where I noted we got about 100 million or so of NII benefit that was offset in MMSA. But I don’t anticipate that being a big story for us going forward. We’ve talked about the fact that the NII that we’re generating is going to drop to the bottom line. That means that continues to be our position.

HSBC Analyst

Okay. And that’s true in markets as well?

Alastair Borthwick (Chief Financial Officer)

Yes. Generally speaking, it just depends on the client activity in markets because sometimes they can change from on balance sheet to off balance sheet. It sometimes changes the NII composition. But if it ever came up where it was a large impact, I would share that.

HSBC Analyst

Okay, got it.

Operator

That’s really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I’m happy to return the call to Brian Moynihan for closing comments.

Brian Moynihan (CEO)

So thank you for joining us. It was a good quarter at bank of America, the first quarter, 2026. Strong NII growth, strong overall revenue growth, great operating leverage and good returns. We look forward to delivering for that in the future. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This brings us to the end of today’s meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.

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