The plan will affect the nation's third-largest bank worldwide, from reducing the size of operations in Tokyo to shuttering consumer branches across California.

Most of the jobs will be lost in 1997, and the bank will take a $165 million charge in the fourth quarter to cover the cost of the changes, the company said.

(It was not known early today if there will be an impact in the islands, where the company has 900 employees in its Bank of America Hawaii unit.

"We have not announced any specific changes in Hawaii," said Peter Magnani, a spokesman at BankAmerica headquarters in San Francisco. "What we put out today was a general announcement of the costs of various restructurings around the system, some of which have been announced," he said. "Nothing with regard to Hawaii."

Mike Liu, a spokesman at Bank of America Hawaii, said BankAmerica's global network is under review and the Hawaii operation is part of that network.

As of today, there is no change in the Hawaii operation, he said.)

All of the Bank of America branch closings announced today will be in California, the company said.

Chairman David Coulter said the restructuring is part of a strategy to "find ways to operate more efficiently and to use our capital more productively." Some sort of restructuring was expected at BankAmerica because Coulter has said he wanted to weed out under-performing operations since becoming chairman in January. He already sold branches in Texas and scaled back some commercial banking and trading operations.

The bank plans to recoup the cost of the restructuring in the form of reduced expenses by the end of 1998, Coulter said.

The plan includes firing workers across several businesses and administrative operations. The California branch closings will cost $100 million before taxes.

In corporate banking and trading, the bank will cut staff in Europe and in Tokyo, as was previously announced, accounting for $130 million in pre-tax charges. BankAmerica also expects to merge some processing and administrative operations in foreign exchange, derivatives and other trading operations.

At the same time, the bank said it will be expanding in other, more profitable areas. In consumer banking, the bank plans to open 200 branches in California supermarkets and build a sales force of 1,400 who will specialize in peddling financial services.

In corporate banking, the bank plans to expand its emerging markets operations.

BankAmerica has 1,400 branches and $242 billion in assets.