Bank of America Authorized $713M to Treasury

Bank of America Corp.'s board has authorized about $713 million in dividend payments to the U.S. government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The company paid its first dividends to the Treasury, totaling $402 million, in February and paid $713 million in May.

In March, Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis said it could take two to three years to repay the Tarp funds. The Treasury has injected $45 billion into Bank of America and agreed to backstop as much as $120 billion of its assets.

Other banking companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, have already exited the program.

Many bankers are already complaining that Tarp has outlived its purpose and imposes needless complications.

Bank of America got an initial $15 billion under Tarp's Capital Purchase Program last fall as the Treasury made investments in the nine largest U.S. banking companies in an effort to unfreeze credit markets. The government later gave $30 billion more related to B of A's purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co.

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