Bank of America Corp is close to exiting a loss-sharing deal with the Federal Reserve Board and U.S. Treasury that was designed to buttress against potential loan losses, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The bank and regulators could announce as early as this afternoon Bank of America will pay from $300 million to $500 million to close the $118 billion facility that back-stopped against potential losses from the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, the paper reported.

A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment.

Bank of America never formally signed on to the deal, and said in May it wanted to terminate the facility.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch; Editing by Richard Chang)