A Canadian-born bank executive has been offered the job of CEO at Bank of America but turned it down, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Ken Lewis, right, listens to Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robert Kelly speak to reporters outside the White House in March. Kelly is rumoured to have been offered Lewis's job atop Bank of America. (Ron Edmonds/Associated Press)

Bank of New York Mellon Corp.'s Robert Kelly was approached recently about the next CEO of Bank of America, the paper says, quoting unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

According to the report, Kelly turned the offer down.

The Nova Scotia-born Kelly spent five years as chief financial officer at Wachovia Corp. before his current stint at Mellon. Prior to that, he was an executive at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

After attending St. Mary's University in Halifax, the chartered accountant worked at TD for 19 years. He was in charge of the bank's trading desk in the 1980s.

The Journal report describes him as as a shrewd deal-maker who was the key architect of the 2007 combination of Pittsburgh's Mellon Financial Corp. and Bank of New York Co.

The current CEO of Bank of America, Ken Lewis, is set to retire at year end. Last month, Lewis succumbed to pressure to resign after nearly a year of strife that followed his company's acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co.

After a scandal plagued year, the board of the largest U.S. bank by assets are believed to favour outside candidates.