Your Source for NPR News & Music
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Looking Back On Bank Of America's Countrywide Debacle

Five years ago Friday, Bank of America announced it was buying one of the nation's largest mortgage lenders. Bank officials thought the deal to buy Countrywide Financial would cement Band of America's place at the top of the commercial banking business. But it did not turn out that way.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Corrected: August 7, 2017 at 10:00 PM MDT
In the introduction to this report, we mistakenly say Bank of America bought Countrywide Financial for $40 billion. In fact, BoA paid $4 billion for Countrywide. As of early 2013, when this story was broadcast, BoA had paid about $40 billion in legal costs related to earlier claims made against Countrywide.
Jim Zarroli is an NPR correspondent based in New York. He covers economics and business news.
Related Stories