Major banks - including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup - have been deliberately understating their debt levels in their public accounts, new data has revealed.
According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 18 banks have been engaged in the practice for the past five quarters.
On average, 42 per cent has been shaved off each bank's debt level – a measure achieved by boosting debt levels in the middle of a quarter and leveraging it towards the end of each three-month period as the time comes to publish accounts, reports the Wall Street Journal.
A Bank of America spokesman said the company had done nothing wrong.
"The efforts to manage the size of our balance sheet are appropriate and our policies are consistent with all applicable accounting and legal requirements," it was stated.
Other banks – including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup – declined to comment on the report, while some stated that their financial filings inform investors of the potential for debt levels to change across the course of each quarter.
William Tanona, a former Goldman Sachs analyst who is now in charge of US financials research at British investment bank Collins Stewart, said these accounting measures were strategically advantageous to the banks.
"You want your leverage to look better at quarter-end than it actually was during the quarter, to suggest that you're taking less risk," he stated.
Accounting practices on Wall Street have come under scrutiny recently following the revelation that Lehman Brothers managed to keep $50 billion worth of debt off its balance sheet using a controversial accounting measure.
It employed Repo 105 to file temporary repurchase agreements as permanent asset sales.
Last month, it was revealed that JPMorgan Chase had also used the practice between 2001 and 2005, although a spokesman for the bank told the Financial Times that all such transactions were done in "very small amounts" and fully disclosed to regulators.
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