Fed gives BofA approval to up dividend to 5 cents

WASHINGTON — (AP) Federal regulators have given Bank of America a green light to proceed with a long-awaited dividend increase it had suspended because of a reporting error.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it has accepted the revised capital plan filed by the second-largest U.S. bank. Bank of America Corp. disclosed in April that it discovered the error, on the value of securities, in a financial report it submitted to the Fed. The data in the report were used to calculate results of an annual "stress test" of the bank conducted by the Fed this year.

Under the revised plan, Bank of America will increase the dividend from a penny per share to 5 cents per share. The plan dropped a $4 billion stock buyback that the bank had proposed earlier.

WSOC