Joe Price Named Bank Of America (BAC) Consumer Banking Head

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan named finance chief Joe Price to head consumer banking, the biggest unit at the largest U.S. lender, seeking to curb losses in a $70 billion credit-card portfolio.

Price will be president of the consumer, small-business and card-banking unit, and step aside as chief financial officer, according to a statement yesterday from the Charlotte, North Carolina-based company. That puts him in charge of 6,000 retail offices for Bank of America, which ranks first among U.S. lenders by deposits.

“That unit is certainly the source of most of their credit issues,” said Blake Howells, an analyst at Becker Capital Management in Portland, Oregon. “If I am a bank CEO and have the capital I need I will be taking as many charges as I can in the fourth quarter and maybe even the first or second quarter.” Moynihan, 50, is putting his mark on the bank’s executive team after taking over from Kenneth D. Lewis at the start of this year. Price replaces Moynihan at the consumer unit, which has been a drag on results as the credit-card business has posted five straight quarterly losses totaling $4.7 billion.

Given the problems that Bank of America has seen with respect to the financial crisis and its commitment to pay back $45 billion of US taxpayers’ money provided to it under TARP, it makes sense for the bank to quickly set its house in order . It thus follows that fixing the consumer banking piece has become critical to its turnaround strategy.