Bank of the West said today it will continue to offer interest-only mortgages to borrowers even though such loans are excluded from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s qualified mortgage rule that goes into effect Friday, American Banker reported. The $65 billion-asset San Francisco bank, a unit of France’s BNP Paribas, said it will hold the loans on its balance sheet, as it has done for many years. “A well-underwritten, interest-only mortgage can be a good choice for our customers and they are safe for us to hold on our balance sheet,” Paul Wible, senior executive vice president and head of Bank of the West’s national finance group, said in a press release.