The decrease was due to the lower interest rate environment, lower transactional volumes, lower mutual fund volumes and higher expenses, Bank of America said.

GWIM revenue of $4.5 billion was also down slightly by 1 per cent, although client balances of $2.51 trillion were up year-on-year by $114 billion and quarter-on-quarter by $12 billion.

Asset management fees of $2.1 billion were also up on the prior year by $184 million, or 10 per cent.

Non-interest expense rose by 3 per cent to $3.5 billion, due to an increase in personnel costs that was driven by higher revenue-related incentive compensation and investment in client-facing staff.

Within Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, BoA said that most of its advisors have a combination of fee- and commission-based relationships. As of March 2015, 51 per cent of its advisors had at least half of their client assets under a fee-based relationship, it added.

MLWM's asset management fees of $1.65 billion rose by 11.4 per cent YoY. Client balance flows were $15.1 billion.

Bank of America Corporation reported net income of $3.4 billion, or $0.27 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2015, compared to a loss of $276 million, or $0.05 per share, in the year-ago period.

“Continuing the trend from last quarter, we saw core loan and deposit growt, higher mortgage originations, and increased wealth management client balances," said BoA's chief executive, Brian Moynihan. 

He added: “We retained a top position in investment banking as our team generated the highest advisory fees since the Merrill Lynch merger. We see continued encouraging signs in customer and client activity, with consumer spending increasing and utilization of credit by our commercial customers rising. This should bode well for the near-term economic outlook."