The beginning of the year for Bank of America Corp. was definitely a good one as the bank managed to post much larger than expected profits, mainly on the benefits brought on by the purchase of Merrill Lynch which happened when the financial crisis was at its peak.

On Friday, the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank revealed that during the year's first quarter, it managed to bag earnings of $3.2 Million, or 28 cents per share. The profits were for the initial three months of 2010.

On an average, the analysts had predicted earnings of 18 cents per share.

The earnings, however, were down as compared to the first quarter of the past year. During the later half of 2009, the company had managed to remain mostly in the negative territory.

The profitable result has come as another sign of the strong recovery which is being recorded by some of the nation's biggest banks including rivals of Bank of America like JPMorgan Chase & Co., which posted his earning earlier during the week.

"With each day that passes, the 2010 story appears to be one of continuing credit recovery, and our results reflect a gradually improving economy", BofA Chief Executive Brian T. Moynihan said.