S&P: Mortgage woes could cost 6 U.S. banks $43 bln
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Repurchase obligations related to mortgage underwriting can cost six major U.S. banks some $43 billion from 2009 to 2012, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said in a report issued Thursday. "We believe that the banks have already accounted for about $12.4 billion of the potential $43 billion in losses on their income statements, which leaves about $31 billion of possible losses for the six banks in our study," said S&P credit analyst Vandana Sharma. Bank of America Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!bac/quotes/nls/bac (
BAC 11.77, +0.25, +2.17%) and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!jpm/quotes/nls/jpm (
JPM 38.20, +0.48, +1.27%) account for a lion's share of the exposure, followed by Wells Fargo & Co. /quotes/comstock/13*!wfc/quotes/nls/wfc (
WFC 26.91, +0.45, +1.68%) , Citigroup Inc. /quotes/comstock/13*!c/quotes/nls/c (
C 4.22, +0.03, +0.74%) , U.S. Bancorp /quotes/comstock/13*!usb/quotes/nls/usb (
USB 24.41, +0.36, +1.48%) , and PNC Financial Services Group /quotes/comstock/13*!pnc/quotes/nls/pnc (
PNC 54.90, +0.84, +1.55%) . S&P noted that mortgage woes are likely to hurt U.S. banks' recovery in 2011 regardless of declining credit costs.