By Lananh Nguyen, Saeed Azhar and Nupur Anand
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bank of America Corp expects good performance for its consumer business in the second quarter as consumer demand remains strong, a senior executive said on Wednesday.
"We do see the health of the consumer really strong and that goes both from a banking perspective and from an investing perspective," Holly O'Neill, Bank of America's president of retail banking said at a Reuters Newsmaker event.
U.S. consumer confidence slipped to a six-month low in May as Americans' assessment of the labor market softened. Still, more households planned to purchase motor vehicles and other big-ticket items over the next six months.
O'Neill said the bank has continued to focus on organic growth, aiming to deepen its relationships with existing clients and then bringing new clients, but did not rule out inorganic opportunities.
"We will certainly look at opportunities, but our focus again, is on organic growth," she said.
Its main rival JPMorgan Chase & Co bought First Republic Bank after it was shuttered by authorities earlier this month.
O'Neill said the bank has seen consumer spending slow a little bit and credit delinquencies are hitting levels closer to pre-pandemic levels.
"From a credit and the delinquency perspective, we are seeing those numbers come back to closer to pre-pandemic, but that's what you would expect in this type of environment," she said.
(Reporting by Lannanh Nguyen, Saeed Azhar and Nupur Anand; Editing by Nick Zieminski)
