The bank had previously projected a slim 0.5 percent increase in U.S. gross domestic product in the final quarter of 2015. The U.S. economy will likely rebound in the first half of this year with upside risk to growth in the first quarter, they said.

"While (fourth-quarter) growth looks worse than we expected, employment and real incomes are running strong, which should bode well for growth in (the first half of) 2016," BNP's U.S. economists wrote in a research note on Friday.

(Reporting by Richard Leong)