BofA CEO: We may start repaying TARP soon

Bank of America may be able to begin paying back its loans from the government now that stress tests have provided clarity to the marker, the company’s CEO said Friday.

BofA CEO John Lewis told CNBC in an interview that the company would begin exploring ways to raise private capital to meet the $34 billion threshold Treasury Department tests determined the bank needed to raise.

“If we can get some clarity around the ability to do that, we could be paying back the TARP hopefully relatively soon,” Lewis said.

Lewis also said that the bank was largely at the mercy of the government during the stress tests.

“I wouldn’t say we negotiated [with the government],” Lewis said on CNBC. “We got some changes based on, obviously, the first quarter performance…There weren’t a lot of substantive changes other than those kinds of things.”

Lewis also termed calls for the breakup of Bank of America “absurd.”