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The program -- known as New BAC after the company's stock symbol -- is focusing on consumer banking and the bank's systems architecture for now, he said. The second phase will focus on institutional client businesses such as corporate banking.

Bank of America built itself through acquisitions over decades and, according to analysts, has not properly integrated systems or closed unnecessary branches. The bank had 5,700 branches nationwide and 287,000 employees as of June 30.

Media reports on Friday said the bank was targeting 40,000 job cuts over the next three years as part of the cost-cutting program.

The bank is targeting an expense-to-revenue ratio to 55 percent and is cutting from roughly $73 billion in annual expenses.

Bank of America has about 50 senior employees reviewing some 150,000 ideas for cutting costs, Moynihan said. He disclosed details of the New BAC program at a Barclays Capital financial services conference.

Bank of America shares have lost nearly half their value this year amid rising fears the bank will need to sell more shares to boost its capital levels.

By many estimates, the bank will need to raise about $50 billion in coming years to meet new global capital requirements, a level the bank says it can reach through earnings and asset sales.

Investors fear mortgage settlements could boost the bank's capital requirements, and that any stock offering would further dilute shareholder equity. The bank's share count has risen from 4 billion in 2007, before the financial crisis peaked, to more than 10 billion this year.

The bank's share price decline was temporarily arrested in late August by a $5 billion investment from billionaire Warren Buffett, who purchased preferred stock and warrants to buy 700 million common shares over the next decade.

At first, news of the Buffett investment sent Bank of America shares soaring more than 20 percent, but they have since retreated to levels seen before the investment.

At the Barclays conference, Moynihan said the bank was not required by regulators to seek outside capital. He also said the Buffett deal was "absolutely the right thing" for the bank to do.

Bank of America were up 3 cents to $7.01 in morning trading.

(Reporting by Joe Rauch and Dan Wilchins; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and John Wallace)

The resignation of Juergen Stark from the ECB throws into question policymakers' ability to deal with Europe's debt crisis, a problem that could engulf a world economy already teetering on the brink of recession.

Greece on Sunday slapped a new tax on real estate to plug a 2011 budget hole, please international lenders and secure a key new loan tranche as concerns mounted in Europe over its euro zone membership.

International Monetary Fund resources could prove to be sorely lacking if global financial conditions worsen and more countries turn to the global lender for financial rescues, IMF staff said in an internal document.

Verizon Communications (VZ.N) has dashed the hopes of Vodafone (VOD.L) investors by ruling out a return to a recurring dividend from the two companies' U.S. mobile phone joint venture, called Verizon Wireless, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has quizzed Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) to determine whether the proposed purchase of ING Groep NV's (ING.AS) U.S. online banking business would create a "too big to fail" institution, the Wall Street Journal said.

French group Technip (TECF.PA) is to buy U.S. underwater oil services specialist Global Industries (GLBL.O) for an agreed $937 million, to expand in the fast-growing underwater oil services sector.

U.S. health insurer WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) and computer giant IBM (IBM.N) agreed to commercially use IBM's Watson technology that could help physicians identify best treatment options.

Shareholders in Britain's Autonomy (AUTN.L) are likely to snap up Hewlett-Packard's (HPQ.N) fully priced offer on Monday, as the chances of a competing bid for the enterprise search software firm recede.

Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) is in talks with book publishers about launching a media library service similar to Netflix Inc (NFLX.O) for tablets and other digital books, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

The U.S. Treasury is weighing a proposal to eliminate some, but not all, of the taxes on overseas profits of U.S.-based companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing two people familiar with the deliberations.

Resource-related stocks will be in focus as key base metals prices fell 1.2 to 2.0 percent and crude oil slipped 2.2. percent on growth concerns.

European shares dropped sharply on Monday, led by banking stocks on concerns that policy makers were not doing enough to come up with a permanent solution to the euro zone peripheral debt crisis as worries intensified that Greece could default. The FTSEurofirst 300 .FTEU3 index of top European shares was down 3.3 percent after dropping 2.6 percent on Friday.

Japan's Nikkei average .N225 fell more than 2 percent on Monday to a fresh 2-1/2 year closing low.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI dropped 303.68 points, or 2.69 percent, to 10,992.13 on Friday. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX dropped 31.67 points, or 2.67 percent, to 1,154.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC dropped 61.15 points, or 2.42 percent, to 2,467.99.

(Reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

Oil and copper prices fell and the dollar gained broadly as worries about the euro zone's woes combined with fears about flagging world growth to ensure no let-up in the gloom that has gripped global markets for much of the past six weeks.

"People are quite nervous about Greece and other countries in the European area, so that is why investors are escaping to the dollar," said Tetsu Emori, a fund manager at Tokyo-based Astmax Co Ltd. "It's risk aversion."

Euro STOXX 50 index futures fell 2.7 percent, and DAX and CAC-40 futures also dropped more than 2 percent, while financial bookmakers called the FTSE 100 .FTSE to open down 1.4 percent.

German policymaker Juergen Stark's resignation from the ECB's board underscored the internal divisions over its bond-buying program -- one of the central bank's main weapons in fighting the debt crisis by forcing down yields of country's under pressure from the bond markets.

Japan's Nikkei .N225 ended down 2.3 percent to its lowest close since April 2009, while the MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS dropped 3 percent and U.S. index futures traded in Asia fell 1.3 percent.

"For the rest of the week, developments in euro zone debt problems and movements in the euro will likely set the direction of the market," said Yutaka Miura, a senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo.

Wall Street stocks tumbled on Friday, when the Stark news broke, with the S&P 500 index .SPX falling 2.7 percent. .N

Data from fund tracker Lipper, a Thomson Reuters service, showed that a brief flirtation with stocks at the end of August has waned, with less than a net $600 million flowing into U.S. equity funds in the week ended September 7, compared with a net inflow of $6.3 billion in the previous week.

MSCI's All-Country World index .MIWD00000PUS is now 19 percent below its 2011 high set in May, not far from the 20 percent decline that is the rule-of-thumb definition of a bear market.

The fund flow picture for emerging Asian equity markets was mixed. Citigroup analysts said in a note that China and Indonesia had seen modest net inflows for the week to September 7. The biggest outflows were from regional funds and the cyclical markets of South Korea and Taiwan.

GREEK DEFAULT

Adding to the euro zone's difficulties, top French banks were bracing for credit rating downgrades on worries about their sovereign debt exposure, and senior German politicians in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition began talking openly about a Greek default.

A growing number of policymakers, as well as market economists, are convinced it is only a matter of time before Greece, which keeps falling behind on its fiscal targets after two EU/IMF bailouts, will have to default.

"The outlook for Greece is almost completely unknown. Support for the country appears to be shaking. The market is starting to think the worst could happen," said Katsunori Kitakura, chief dealer at Chuo Mitsui Trust and Banking.

The euro fell to a six-month low around $1.3495 and later traded about $1.3530, after a sharp slide at the end of last week. Against the yen, the single currency fell as far as 104.27, its lowest since 2001.

Meanwhile, the dollar index .DXY, which tracks the greenback against a basket of major currencies, rose around 0.6 percent to its highest in more than six months.

U.S. crude oil fell by $1.59 to $85.64 a barrel and Brent crude eased $1.32 to $111.45. Copper was down 1 percent at $8,733.75 a tonne.

Both commodities are sensitive to expectations for global growth, and hence industrial demand.

Currencies of major commodity producers were, in turn, under pressure, with the Australian dollar falling more than 1 percent to a three-week low around $1.0330.

Gold, which has been striking a succession of records due to its traditional appeal as a safe haven at times of market volatility, fell 0.6 percent to around $1,846 an ounce as a stronger dollar made it more expensive for holders of other currencies.

Gold priced in euros, however, hit a record 1,373.92 an ounce.

Japanese government bonds tracked gains in U.S. Treasuries and German bunds as investors sought the perceived safest government debt, with the benchmark 10-year JGB yield falling below 1 percent.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa in Singapore, Ian Chua in Sydney and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Kavita Chandran)