Lots of people are questioning whether Bank of America has won or lost with ex-CEO Ken Lewis' purchase of Countrywide. The Merrill Lynch deal has also been debated. But have things deteriorated so much in the credit and debit card industry that it's now time to question the worth of yet another Lewis deal: the purchase of MBNA in 2006 for $35 billion.

Bank of America raised brows when it announced it had doubled a "goodwill impairment" charge for its credit-card unit to $20.3 billion to reflect increased defaults and deteriorating conditions, some of which was blamed on new regulations. The non-cash charge applied to 2009 and 2010, and doesn't affect the current capital position of the bank. Banks must regularly test their balance-sheet goodwill for potential impairments, and some smaller banks have taken huge hits as a result.

Bank of America explained that it previously tested goodwill for entire business segments rather than individual subsidiaries, but last year "we changed our processes and looked more closely at legal entities underlying the businesses," according to Bloomberg.

The big issue for many is whether the goodwill impairment is basically enough. Hopefully, the big hit has been taken. There have been some signs that the industry is improving. For example, the number of delinquent card customers has been falling recently.

For more:
- here's the Bloomberg article

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