NEW YORK - Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis said Wednesday that there are no plans to call off its $4 billion deal to acquire Countrywide Financial Corp., and that he believes charge-offs and delinquencies in the United States will peak in the third quarter.

Lewis said Bank of America will control a 20 percent to 25 percent market share in the home loan market once the Countrywide deal is completed, and that will boost business once the housing crisis comes to an end.

He also thinks there is "a ways to go" before the credit crisis is over, but that the nationwide bank's business mix will help fuel earnings going forward.

"I knew there would be adverse publicity" to the Countrywide deal, Lewis said. "But, nothing has happened in some form or fashion that would make us call off the deal."

Bank of America shareholders have been vocal during the past year that the acquisition of the Calabassas, Calif.-based mortgage originator was a bad decision. Countrywide has been the target of class-action lawsuits alleging sold and approved loans knowing borrowers could not afford them.

In defense of the deal, Lewis said there have been increased charge-offs and delinquencies on credit card accounts and other loans - but not with the ferocity of the past year.

He said that Countrywide had a "misguided focus on subprime," but that overall mortgage products continue to be a key consumer business that won't dissipate.

While Bank of America might have staved off bankruptcy for Countrywide, Lewis forecast that smaller banks around the country will begin to buckle under the weight of their mortgage inventories.

He also believes that it will be harder for the small and medium-sized banks to compete with large financial institutions such as Bank of America.

"I think we'll see some small banks fail to the extent we see deterioration in housing deals, and some of those small banks have a lot of concentration in that," he said.

"Over time, I'm not sure how the midsized banks can compete with BofA. The ubiquity of the branches, the brand, I'm just not sure how they can compete," he said.