Fed gives Bank of America approval to proceed with suspended dividend increase, stock buybacks

Federal regulators have given Bank of America a green light to proceed with a long-awaited dividend increase and stock buyback program it had suspended because of a reporting error.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it has accepted the revised capital plan filed by the second-largest U.S. bank. Bank of America Corp. disclosed in April that it discovered the error, on the value of securities, in a financial report it submitted to the Fed. The data in the report were used to calculate results of an annual "stress test" of the bank conducted by the Fed this year.

The Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank's original plan called for buying $4 billion of its own stock and raising its dividend from a penny per share to 5 cents per share.