Bank of America Corp. on Monday said its credit-card subsidiary was restating eight quarters of reports to regulators because it took a $20.3 billion write-down due to deteriorating credit and new regulations over the past two years.

The charge, being taken in "call reports" filed to bank regulators, isn't counted under generally accepted accounting principles, and won't affect the bank's capital or prior earnings. But the enormous size of the charge being reported to regulators shows the extent to which the financial crisis and the regulatory overhaul in its wake have affected Bank of America's card business.

The bank is the nation's largest by assets. The charges announced Monday relate to the bank's FIA Card Services NA unit, which is part of the bank's Global Card Services business. That business' GAAP results aren't impacted by the noncash, non-tax-deductible goodwill write-down of its subsidiary.

Bank of America restated its reports to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency because it determined that a previous regulatory write-down of more than $10 billion in the segment wasn't sufficient. The previous write-down wasn't made public until Monday, as the bank doesn't include FIA in its public reports.

The bank determined it needed to write down almost twice as much because of the trouble in its credit-card operations and because of lower income prospects due to new regulations.

For 2009, the Global Card business had net charge-offs, loans it no longer expects to collect on, of 11.3% of loans. In 2010, the figure was at 10.4%.

The regulatory charge reported Monday is separate from, and doesn't change, a $10.4 billion write-down in Bank of America's Global Card Services business in the 2010 third quarter. That charge helped drive the bank to post a net loss for all of 2010. The bank had said it took that third-quarter charge because of expected loss of revenue from the debit-card overhaul known as the Durbin Amendment as well as an overhaul known as the CARD Act.

The CARD Act, formally known as the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, requires more disclosures on rates and fees. Durbin curbs fees banks can charge for each swipe of a debit card. Banks have said that the regulations would change the way they do consumer banking, and warned they could lead to the end of free checking. Because of the regulatory changes, Bank of America is among the banks trying out new fees on checking and card accounts.