Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC)

Wells Fargo reported third-quarter 2026 net income of $6.0 billion, or $1.87 per diluted share, on 13 October 2026 1. Revenue was $21.9 billion, up 2 percent, while noninterest expense fell 1 percent to $13.7 billion 2. Average loans and average deposits both grew 11 percent from a year earlier 1.

Chairman and chief executive Charlie Scharf credited broad growth: Wealth and Investment Management revenue rose 12 percent and auto loan originations 15 percent 1. Costs fell even as pay tied to revenue rose, helped by an 8 percent cut in headcount over the year 1. Return on tangible common equity, profit measured against shareholders' equity less goodwill and other intangibles, was 16.3 percent 1.

The open questions are credit and capital 12. The provision for credit losses, money set aside for loans that may go bad, rose to $1.0 billion from $681 million as commercial loan losses climbed 1. The common equity tier 1 ratio, the core capital cushion regulators watch, fell to 10.0 percent from 11.0 percent a year earlier, against a required 8.5 percent 2.

Scharf said higher interest rates, higher oil prices and persistent inflation create risks to the economy, while investment in AI infrastructure and high employment outweigh them for now 1.

Wells Fargo carries the names of Henry Wells and William G Fargo, the founders of the original Wells, Fargo & Co. 28. The company that files today is the former Norwest Corporation, which filed under that name until 2 November 1998, while the former Wells Fargo & Company filed separately 4.

The biggest step came on 31 December 2008, when Wachovia Corporation of Charlotte, North Carolina, merged into Wells Fargo 11. Wachovia brought 3,300 financial centers in 21 states, from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas and California 11. That year net income fell to $2.66 billion from $8.06 billion, weighed down by an $8.14 billion build of credit reserves 11.

By 2016 the bank earned $21.9 billion a year, but in September 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fined it $100 million for secretly opening accounts customers never asked for 1310. Spurred by sales targets and bonuses, employees opened roughly 1.5 million deposit accounts and applied for roughly 565,000 credit cards that may not have been authorized 10. The bank also paid a $35 million penalty to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency 10.

On 2 February 2018 the Federal Reserve answered with a consent order that barred Wells Fargo from growing larger than its total assets at the end of 2017 until it fixed its governance and controls 74. The Fed said the bank had pursued growth without ensuring appropriate management of all key risks 7. The bank also had to replace three directors by April and a fourth by year end 7.

The board then brought in Charles W Scharf, chairman and chief executive of Bank of New York Mellon, as chief executive from 21 October 2019, when the company counted 263,000 team members 14. The pandemic hit next: 2020 net income fell to $3.3 billion from $19.5 billion, as the provision for credit losses rose $11.4 billion and restructuring charges reached $1.5 billion 12. On 23 February 2021 the bank agreed to sell Wells Fargo Asset Management for $2.1 billion, planning to keep a 9.9 percent equity interest 12.

Scharf told analysts in October 2026 that headcount had fallen every quarter for the past 6 years and stood 30 percent below its peak of the second quarter of 2020 26. Over that stretch the bank also sold businesses, among them the rail car leasing business, agreed in May 2025 and closed on 1 January 2026 3.

In June 2025 the Federal Reserve lifted the asset cap after finding the bank had met all the conditions, and Wells Fargo gave full-time employees a special $2,000 award 815. For 2025 the board credited Scharf with closing 7 regulatory consent orders and returning about $23 billion to shareholders, including $18 billion of share repurchases 16. Net income rose to $21.3 billion, or $6.26 per diluted share, from $19.7 billion in 2024 3.

The last piece fell in March 2026, when the Federal Reserve ended its 2018 enforcement action entirely after remediation work that it said spanned nearly a decade 9. InvestmentNews reported that the decision left the bank free of restrictive public consent orders for the first time since the 2016 fake-accounts scandal 27.

Consumer Banking and Lending

Consumer Banking and Lending serves people and small businesses with checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and home, auto, personal and small business loans 1. It brought in $10.7 billion of revenue in the third quarter of 2026, nearly half of the company's $21.9 billion, up 5 percent 1. Its net income rose 21 percent to $2.8 billion 1.

Consumer, Small and Business Banking, the branch and deposit business, earned $7.6 billion, up 7 percent on bigger deposit balances and wider deposit spreads 1. The bank ran 4,068 branches at the end of the quarter, down from 4,108 a year earlier, and counted 34.0 million mobile active customers 2. Its Everyday Checking account carries a $15 monthly service fee, which a $1,500 minimum daily balance or $500 of qualifying electronic deposits avoids 24.

Credit cards, auto loans and mortgages

Credit card revenue rose 3 percent to $1.7 billion, and the bank opened 661 thousand new card accounts in the quarter 2. Its Active Cash card pays unlimited 2 percent cash rewards on purchases for a $0 annual fee 23. NerdWallet's Jae Bratton wrote that among flat-rate cash-back cards “it's hard to beat 2% back,” while noting that the card charges a foreign transaction fee 25.

Auto lending revenue jumped 33 percent on higher balances and wider spreads, with $10.1 billion of new auto loans in the quarter 2. Home Lending went the other way: revenue fell 15 percent to $743 million on lower mortgage servicing income and smaller loan balances 2.

Commercial Banking

Commercial Banking lends to and handles cash for private, family-owned and some public companies 1. Its quarterly revenue rose 6 percent to $3.2 billion as its deposits grew 16 percent 1. Its provision for credit losses rose $201 million from a year earlier, which the bank tied to loan growth 1.

Corporate and Investment Banking

Corporate and Investment Banking serves large companies, property investors, governments and institutions with loans, deal advice, payments and trading 1. Its revenue was $5.0 billion in the quarter: Banking brought $2.0 billion, commercial real estate $1.2 billion and Markets, the trading desks, $1.8 billion 1. Mergers advisory revenue rose 30 percent, and Wells Fargo ranked sixth in announced US deal volume so far in 2026, up from ninth 12.

Wealth and Investment Management

Wealth and Investment Management gives affluent and very wealthy clients financial advisers, brokerage, planning, lending and trust services, plus the WellsTrade and Intuitive Investor apps 1. Its revenue rose 12 percent to $4.1 billion on higher investment advisory fees, and its client assets reached $2.45 trillion 2.

Offices and operations

Wells Fargo occupied 58.9 million square feet at the end of 2025, 52.8 million of it in the United States 4. The Charlotte area is its largest site, with 5.3 million square feet, ahead of Minneapolis-St Paul and New York, while headquarters sit in San Francisco 4. Abroad, India holds 4.3 million square feet and the Philippines 1.3 million; Wells Fargo International Solutions Private Limited of India is a listed subsidiary 45.

People

Charles W Scharf is chairman and chief executive, and the board approved $40 million of total pay for his 2025 performance 16. At the annual meeting of 28 April 2026, 65.53 percent of the votes cast backed the pay of the top executives, against 95.28 percent for Scharf's own election as a director 17.

The workforce was about 205,000 active employees at the end of 2025, 76 percent of them in the United States 4. By the end of September 2026 headcount was 194 thousand, down from 211 thousand a year earlier 2. Scott Powell moves from chief operating officer to chief risk officer on 15 January 2027 18.

Rivals

In the Federal Reserve's ranking of US commercial banks at 30 June 2026, Wells Fargo Bank was fourth by consolidated assets, with $1.9 trillion and 4,128 domestic branches 22. Ahead stood JPMorgan Chase Bank with $4.1 trillion, Bank of America with $2.7 trillion and Citibank with $2.0 trillion 22. The annual report adds that private credit firms, investment managers and financial technology companies compete for the same customers 4.

Problems on file

Wells Fargo Bank remains under a formal agreement of 12 September 2024 with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over its anti-money laundering and sanctions controls 6. On 21 May 2026 a court approved an $85 million settlement of a securities class action over the company's statements about its diversity hiring practices 6. Class actions over the rates paid to advisory clients on swept cash are pending 6.

The company put the high end of reasonably possible legal losses beyond its accruals at about $1.5 billion as of 30 June 2026 6.

The umbrella, in words

Wells Fargo & Company is a holding company, and its main subsidiary, Wells Fargo Bank, held $1.8 trillion of assets, 85 percent of the total, at the end of 2025 4. The subsidiaries exhibit names, among others, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC and WFC Holdings, LLC, leaving out units that together are not significant 5.

The company reports stakes of its own: through Wells Fargo Municipal Capital Strategies, LLC it owns 76.84 percent of the preferred shares of Nuveen Municipal High Income Opportunity Fund, a closed-end municipal bond fund 21. Among holders of its own common stock, Vanguard Capital Management reported 7.5 percent and FMR LLC 5.8 percent in their Schedule 13G filings 1920.

Its common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange as WFC, beside depositary shares of several series of non-cumulative preferred stock 4. Exhibit 21 shows Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, as a national bank chartered in the United States 5.

For the full year 2026 the company expects net interest income, what loans and securities earn minus what deposits and debt cost, of about $50 billion, unchanged from its earlier guidance 2. It expects about $13 billion of that in the fourth quarter, and noninterest expense of about $55.7 billion for the year 2.

When the asset cap came off in June 2025, Scharf said the company planned to keep raising returns and growth in a deliberate manner, after changing and simplifying its business mix 15. In the third quarter of 2026 average loans and deposits each rose 11 percent, with average loans higher in every operating segment 1.

Scharf said on the call of 13 October 2026 that return on tangible common equity is getting closer to the company's 17 percent to 18 percent target, and that ultimately the targets should be higher 26. He said the timing is influenced by markets and the credit environment 26.

On capital, the board authorized up to $40 billion of share repurchases on 29 April 2025, and about $22.7 billion of that authority remained at 30 June 2026 6. The quarterly common dividend rose to $0.50 a share in the third quarter from $0.45 2.

With the rail car leasing sale closed on 1 January 2026, the company expects noninterest expense about $400 million a year lower, offset by a similar drop in noninterest income 3.

The settlement of a shareholder derivative suit over mortgage lending and hiring commits $100 million to mortgage help for low- and moderate-income borrowers, according to the court notice 29. The release says final third-quarter figures come in the quarterly report on Form 10-Q and may differ from the preliminary results 1. Powell takes over as chief risk officer on 15 January 2027 18.

Past

Wells Fargo's revenue grew from $54 billion in fiscal 2016 to $87 billion in fiscal 2025, up 5.6% a year, rising in 6 of 9 years with a deepest fall of 40% from fiscal 2019 to fiscal 2021; net income stayed positive in all 10 filed years Over the three fiscal years to 2025, the diluted share count shrank about 5.5% a year, and dividends and buybacks returned about 100% of operating cash flow Dividends declared per share rose from $1.515 in fiscal 2016 to $1.7 in fiscal 2025 Wells Fargo's filings since 2017 show no warning events: no bankruptcy notice, no debt default notice, no exchange listing notice, no restatement warning, no auditor change, no material cyber incident and no late-report notice 12

Present

In its latest annual figures for the fiscal year ended 2025-12-31, Wells Fargo reported revenue of $87 billion and a profit of $21 billion Return on equity was about 12 cents of profit for every dollar of shareholders' money; the company owed about 91 cents per dollar of assets, and the share count shrank 6.5% over the year Revenue of $87 billion in fiscal 2025 ranks in the top 3% by size among 79 graded names in its industry family; a net margin of 24.4% ranks in the top 32% Shareholders' equity was $183.04 billion as of 2025-12-31 The chief executive is Charles W. Scharf, filing under that title since 2019-10-23, 7 years; the 27 officers and directors have been on the record a median of 6.3 years 314

Future

A quarterly report for the quarter ending 2026-09-30 is due by 2026-11-09 An annual report for the fiscal year ending 2026-12-31 is due by 2027-03-01 Revenue grew 17.4% a year over the last three filed years against 5.6% over all 10, speeding up in the top 15% of its family; the newest year grew -3.8%, in the bottom 8% Revenue of $87 billion in fiscal 2025 came in 25.8% below the $118 billion its prior three years' pace pointed to Cash of $173 billion against debt of $175 billion leaves -0.1% of its assets as net cash, in the bottom 24% of its family; cash from operations less capital spending is -21.8% of revenue, in the bottom 6% 51

How the company operates

Wells Fargo is a lending business classified under National Commercial Banks The company reported 3 lines of business in fiscal 2025: Consumer Banking and Lending at $37 billion, Wealth and Investment Management at $16 billion, and Commercial Banking at $12 billion; 2 of 3 grew in the latest filed year, and the largest line is 57% of revenue 31

New moves

On 2026-10-13, three banks earned more than a year ago, with two setting aside more for bad loans and two chiefs naming higher rates a risk On 2026-10-17, Goldman, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley see tokenization as a growth play; on 2026-10-13, an analyst upgraded the rating as the stock's pullback offered a nice entry point; on 2026-10-07, the Trump Administration investigated Wells Fargo for race-based lending and Wells Fargo was in talks with Kraken parent Payward for crypto trading liquidity 67