Americans have saved up to 70% of their latest stimulus checks, Bank of America's CEO says, potentially leaving hundreds of billions unspent

• Americans have saved up to 70% of their latest stimulus checks, Bank of America's CEO told CBS.
• This could mean Americans have collectively set aside hundreds of billions of dollars.
• "Our consumers have lots of money in their checking accounts," Moynihan told CBS.

Americans have collectively saved billions from the last two rounds of stimulus checks, Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told CBS in an interview on Sunday.

"Our consumers have lots of money in their checking accounts," Moynihan told CBS. "They have not spent about 65-70% of the last couple of rounds of stimulus."

The second and third rounds of federal government stimulus checks totaled an estimated $575 billion, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an economic think tank. If the US population at large have saved as much as Bank of America's customers, this could therefore mean unspent money from stimulus payments is as much as $400 billion.

Moynihan said that so far in 2021, consumer spending has surged 20% above 2019 levels. He said that spending on car rentals and hotels for leisure travel was "strong." He also said people were spending more in restaurants.

"The US economy is really set to go," Moynihan said.

Bank of America has predicted that the economy will grow 7% this year, and 5.5% in 2022, Moynihan added, but labor shortages posed a risk to further growth.

President Joe Biden signed the third stimulus check into law in March, sending $1,400 checks to most taxpayers as part of his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

Bank of America did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.