This ranking evaluates how Fortune 500 companies are deploying AI, and how technology leaders value those investments relative to industry peers.

Fortune AIQ 75

The companies on the Global 500 employ 70.2 million people, and their revenue represents more than one-third of the world’s GDP.

Fortune Global 500

With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.5 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $24 billion.

America's Most Innovative Companies

Fortune AIQ 50

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

Industries included in the sector are banks, insurance, and real estate companies.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Financials

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500-2023-047-Wells-Fargo

The fourth biggest bank in the U.S. in terms of revenue dropped six spots on this year’s list amid a tumultuous period marked by rising interest rates. 
<ul> 
 	<li>The bank posted revenues of $82.8 billion for 2022, up 0.5% from the year prior. It accrued $13 billion in profits in 2022, down 38.8% from the previous year.</li> 
 	<li>In May 2023 Wells Fargo paid $1 billion to settle a class action lawsuit in which shareholders accused the bank of overstating its progress toward fixing practices that had gotten it into legal trouble in the 2010s. Most prominent of those scandals was a fake-accounts scheme in which bank employees frequently opened accounts without depositors’ knowledge to meet sales goals.</li> 
</ul>

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

F500 2022-Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is the third-largest bank in the U.S. by assets, with $1.79 trillion as of February. It serves one in three U.S. households and more than 10% of small businesses in the country. Its stock surged more than 61% in 2021, as Wells Fargo produced a massive $21.5 billion in earnings—fueled in part by a post-pandemic resurgence in lending. But the financial giant continues to labor under a balance-sheet cap imposed by the Federal Reserve after its 2016 fake-accounts scandal. Other legal problems have bubbled up in 2022: In March, Wells Fargo was sued in California for alleged discrimination against Black mortgage borrowers. (The bank has denied that it discriminates in its lending.)

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500 103 Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo continues to experience fallout from its 2016 fake accounts scandal, even five years on. An asset cap imposed in 2018 in response to the bank’s misdeeds prevented the company from taking some deposits during the pandemic. Net income for 2020 slipped to $3.3 billion, compared with $19.5 billion in the year prior. And with a smaller trading and investment banking arm compared with its megabank peers, Wells Fargo also missed out on much of the surge in equities during the year. Still, the bank is seeing a flicker of light: The Fed accepted a proposal to overhaul the bank’s risk management in early 2021, signaling a first step toward lifting the bank’s asset cap. But that comes after Wells Fargo’s continued struggles have worn on investor patience: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, once one of the company’s largest shareholders, culled its holdings by 83% in 2020.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-37-Wells Fargo

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-069-Wells-Fargo

Three years after Wells Fargo's fake accounts scandal erupted, the cleanup continues. There have been countless lawsuits, two CEO exits (three, if you count the departure of an interim leader), and, this February, a new $3 billion fine to resolve further investigations. A $1.95 trillion asset cap on Wells Fargo, imposed by the Federal Reserve in 2018, continues to limit the bank’s growth compared with its peers. Now, CEO Charles Scharf, who joined in October 2019, is tasked with reforming Wells Fargo’s image in the eyes of consumers and regulators alike. Scharf, a former CEO of Bank of New York Mellon, and before that, Visa, is the first top leader brought in from outside Wells Fargo in more than a century; so far he has reorganized reporting lines and brought in more outside executives.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-030-Wells-Fargo

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2018 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

World's Most Admired Companies

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

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This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

Business insiders have spoken: Asked which companies they most admire, more than 4,100 executives, directors, and analysts chose these top 50 All-Stars.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

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Wells Fargo was among the top six U.S. banks in terms of total assets in 2026. It provides consumer, commercial, corporate, and investment banking services, as well as wealth and investment management.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

Wells Fargo (WFC): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Wells Fargo

wells fargo

Wells Fargo's conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star one. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star two. Please note that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to John Campbell, Director of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin the conference.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our call today, where our CEO, Charlie Scharf, and our CFO, Mike Santomassimo, will discuss fourth-quarter results and answer your questions. This call is being recorded. Before we get started, I would like to remind you that our fourth-quarter earnings materials, including the release, financial supplement, and presentation deck, are available on our

website at wellsfargo.com. I'd also like to caution you that we may make forward-looking statements during today's call that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations are detailed in our SEC filings, including the Form 8-K filed today containing our earnings materials. Information about any non-GAAP financial measures referenced, including a reconciliation of those measures to GAAP measures, can be found in our SEC filings and the earnings materials available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Charlie.

Thanks, John. I'm going to provide an overview of our 2025 results and update you on our priorities. I'll then turn the call over to Mike to review fourth-quarter results, as well as our net interest income and expense expectations for 2026 before we take your questions. Let me start with our 2025 highlights. Our strong financial results reflected the significant momentum we're building across the company. Our net

income increased to $21.3 billion, and our diluted earnings per share grew 17% from a year ago. Our continued investments in our business helped drive revenue growth, with fee-based revenue up 5% from a year ago. This growth was broad-based, with increases in both our Consumer and Commercial Businesses. Much of the investments we have been making have been funded by our disciplined approach to managing expenses.

We had positive operating leverage in 2025, and we continue to have opportunities to generate efficiencies. Our ongoing focus has resulted in 22 consecutive quarters of headcount reductions, with headcount down over 25% since Q2 2020. Since the lifting of the asset cap, we've been growing our balance sheet, and our assets grew 11% from a year ago, including broad-based loan growth and higher trading assets to help support our Markets businesses. We also grew deposits with

higher balances in both our commercial and consumer businesses. Credit performance was strong, and net charge-offs declined 16% from a year ago. The economy and our customers remain resilient, but we continue to closely monitor our portfolios for signs of weakness. In addition to tracking credit metrics in our loan portfolios, such as early-stage delinquencies, we also monitor consumer behavior more broadly to help us understand consumer health.

For example, we look at things like checking accounts with unemployment flows, direct deposit amounts, overdraft activity, and payment outflows, and we've not observed meaningful shifts in trends. Our capital levels remain strong, while returning $23 billion of excess capital to shareholders. During 2025, we increased our common stock dividend per share by 13% and repurchased $18 billion of

common stock. Given we have many opportunities to grow organically, we currently expect share repurchases to be lower in 2026. We will continue to focus on optimizing our capital levels as we manage to a CET1 ratio of approximately 10%-10.5%. Let me turn to the progress we've made throughout the past year on our strategic priorities. The removal of the asset cap by the Federal Reserve was a pivotal moment for the company.

This milestone, combined with successfully closing 13 regulatory orders since 2019, underscores the significant progress we've made in transforming the organization. We are incredibly proud of our success and understand the importance of continuing to build on that work and sustain the culture that supports it. While executing on our risk and control initiatives, we simultaneously worked to position the

company for stronger growth and improved returns. Let me walk you through how these actions are improving our business drivers, beginning with our Consumer Business. We have been investing in our Credit Card business since I joined Wells Fargo, and our focus has been driving strong outcomes. We opened nearly three million new Credit Card accounts in 2025, up 21% from a year ago. Credit card balances were up 6% from a year ago, and importantly, we've maintained our credit standards.

After two to three years of absorbing the upfront costs of our new products, we are beginning to see the early vintages contributing to profitability. Our Auto business returned to growth in 2025, with stronger origination volumes and 19% growth in loan balances from a year ago. Our results reflected growth across our portfolio, including benefiting from becoming the preferred financing provider for Volkswagen and Audi brands in the United States in the spring of last year. The Auto business goes

through cycles, and we have intentionally scaled back growth in recent years. With the investments we have made to improve our capabilities, we are now well-positioned to methodically return to broad-spectrum lending. Importantly, we're focused on making sure we have the right level of profitability in this business, not just growth. We have made good progress in transforming and simplifying the Home Lending business.

Over the past three years, we've reduced headcount by over 50% and the amount of third-party mortgage loans serviced by over 40%, including reducing the servicing portfolio by $90 billion in 2025 alone. We are continuing to reduce the size of this business while focusing on serving our bank and wealth management customers, which will help improve profitability. Within Consumer, Small, and

Business Banking, we had stronger growth in net checking accounts in 2025 than last year, driven by digital account openings and an increase in marketing. We continue to refurbish our branches, completing approximately 700 branches in 2025. Over half of our network is now refurbished, and we are on track to complete the remaining branches over the next few years.

We continue to make enhancements to our mobile app, including making it significantly easier to open accounts, and in 2025, 50% of our consumer checking accounts were opened digitally. We grew mobile active customers by 1.4 million in 2025, up 4% from a year ago. Wells Premier, our offering to serve our affluent clients, continue to build momentum in 2025. We increased the number of licensed bankers and grew branch-based financial advisors by 12% from a year ago, with a focus on increasing the number of

bankers and advisors in the locations where we have the most opportunities. Premier deposit and investment balances grew 14% during 2025. This remains a significant area of opportunity for us. We also had continued momentum in our Wealth and Investment Management Business, with total hires increasing, attrition declining, and net asset flows accelerating in the second half of 2025. Turning to our commercial businesses.

In the commercial bank, while we are the market leader with strong returns, we still have plenty of opportunities for growth. We have hired 185 coverage bankers over the last two years, with over 60% of the bankers hired in 2025. We are starting to see early signs of success from these hires, with higher new client acquisition as well as loan and deposit growth. We also continue to be focused on providing

investment banking and markets capabilities, with fees from providing these capabilities to our Commercial Banking clients growing over 25% in 2025. Overland Advantage, our strategic partnership with Centerbridge Partners, has enabled us to better serve our Commercial Banking customers with a direct lending product, and since inception, we have helped our clients raise approximately $7 billion in financing. As I highlighted on our last call, our goal is to be a top five U.S. investment bank.

We grew our share in 2025, and we're confident that we can continue to make progress over time by using our competitive advantages, including our long and deep relationships with large corporate and middle market companies, a complete product set, significant existing credit exposure, strong risk

discipline, and the capacity to support our clients through cycles. In M&A, we're winning increasingly bigger and more complex assignments. We advised on two of the largest M&A deals of 2025, increasing our announced U.S. M&A ranking to eighth in 2025, up from twelfth in 2024. We entered 2026 with our deal pipeline meaningfully greater than it has been at any point in the last five years, although market conditions can always change.

And with the lifting of the asset cap, we've been able to utilize our balance sheet to accelerate growth in our trading businesses, including increasing trading-related assets by 50% in 2025 to accommodate customer trading flows and financing activities. While many of the assets have been added recently are lower margin, they also have lower risk and are less capital-intensive. Our ability to support this client

activity increases engagement and should lead to more business. In summary, our strong performance in 2025 reflects the meaningful progress we've made to transform Wells Fargo, and our actions position us for continued higher growth and returns. Our ROTCE increased to 15% in 2025. To put this in perspective, when we first started talking about increasing our returns in the Q4 of 2020, our ROTCE was 8%, and we set a goal of reaching 10%.

Once we established that goal, we raised our target to 15%. As we discussed on last quarter's call, we have a new medium-term ROTCE target of 17%-18%. While both the path and the timing to achieve our target is dependent on a variety of factors, including interest rates, the broader macroeconomic environment, and the regulatory environment, we are confident that we can reach this goal by

maintaining our expense discipline, realizing the benefits of our investments to drive stronger revenue growth, and further optimizing our capital levels. As a reminder, 17%-18% is not our final goal, but another stop along the way to achieving best-in-class returns by business, and ultimately, our returns should be higher than this target. I want to end by thanking everyone who works at Wells Fargo for their hard work and dedication last year.

Their unwavering commitment to our customers and to our transformation is what positions us to become a best-in-class company. I'm excited about our momentum and look forward to building on our success as we enter the new year from a position of strength. I will now turn the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Charlie. And good morning, everyone. We earned $5.4 billion in the Q4, up 6% from a year ago. Diluted earnings per common share was $1.62, up 13% year over year, and excluding the severance expense, our diluted earnings per share was $1.76. Q4 included $612 million of severance expense, primarily for actions we will take throughout 2026. We also had severance expense in the Q3 for a total of $908 million in the second half of 2025.

As Charlie highlighted, we have reduced headcount every quarter since the Q3 of 2020, and we continue to have opportunities to further streamline the company and become more efficient. Turning to slide four, net interest income increased $381 million, or 3%, from the Q3, driven by higher Markets NII. Net interest income, excluding markets, increased $167 million from higher loan and

deposit balances, as well as fixed asset repricing, partially offset by changes in deposit mix. I will update you on our expectations for 2026 net interest income later in the call. Moving to slide five, we had strong loan growth with both average and period-end loans increasing from the Q3 and from a year ago. Period-end loans grew 5% from the Q3, the strongest linked-quarter growth since the Q1 of 2020 when we had COVID-related growth.

Average loans increased $49.4 billion, or 5%, from a year ago, driven by growth in commercial and industrial loans in Corporate Investment Banking, as well as growth in Commercial Banking. As you can see on this slide, one of the industry categories driving commercial loan growth has been financials

except banks. While it is often referred to as one category, it's actually fairly broad. In our 10-Qs and 10-K, we have traditionally broken down these loans into four types: lending to asset managers, commercial finance, consumer finance, and real estate finance. Let me walk through each of these categories briefly to give you a better understanding of what they include. Asset managers and funds.

The biggest piece of this category, as well as the driver of most of the growth, is from our fund finance group, which is largely subscription or capital call facilities for alternative asset managers, targeting larger funds with strong investment track records, where we have long-standing strategic relationships and that are generally backed by a diversified pool of limited partner commitments to the fund. Within

commercial finance, the biggest piece is our corporate debt finance business, which is secured lending to asset managers and private equity funds that is typically backed by middle market and broadly syndicated loans. We underwrite, approve, and monitor the performance of each underlying loan. Consumer finance, the smallest category, lends to clients engaged in auto lending, credit card issuers, and other types of consumer lending.

Finally, the real estate finance portfolio includes both secured lending to mortgage REITs and private equity funds that originate or purchase Commercial Real Estate mortgage loans and secured lending to asset managers and specialty finance companies backed by agency residential mortgage loans and residential mortgage-backed securities. Since this portfolio has been growing, we are now providing

this additional detail by category earnings rather than just in our 10-Q filings, as we've done in the past. While this type of lending has picked up across the industry recently, we have made these kinds of loans for many years. They are generally secured and have features to help manage credit risk, such as structural credit enhancements and collateral eligibility requirements, as well as collateral advance rates that generally get us to the equivalent of investment-grade risk.

Given these features and our experience underwriting these loans, as well as the collateral that supports them, we have found this type of lending to offer an attractive risk return. Now turning to consumer loans, which also grew from a year ago, with growth in auto securities-based lending and wealth and investment management and credit card. While residential mortgage loans continued to decline, driven by our strategy to primarily focus on our bank and wealth management customers, the rate of decline

slowed. Turning to deposits on slide six, average deposits increased $23.9 billion from a year ago, as growth in consumer and commercial deposits more than offset declines in higher-cost corporate treasury deposits. We achieved this growth while reducing average deposit costs by 29 basis points from a year ago, with lower interest-bearing deposit yields across all of our businesses.

Turning to slide seven, non-interest income increased $419 million, or 5%, from a year ago. Our results a year ago included losses from the repositioning of the investment securities portfolio, as well as strong results from our venture capital investments. We grew fee-based revenue across most of our business-related fee categories, including 8% growth in investment advisory fees and brokerage commissions, our largest category, driven by growth in asset-based fees reflecting higher market valuations in wealth

and investment management. Turning to expenses on slide eight, non-interest expense declined $174 million from a year ago. Let me highlight the primary drivers. We had lower FDIC assessment expense, lower operating losses, and we benefited from the impact of efficiency initiatives. Partially offsetting these declines was higher revenue-related compensation expense, primarily in wealth and investment management, driven by strong market performance.

We also had higher advertising and technology expense, driven by the investments we were making in our businesses to generate growth. I would note that while our Q4 2025 expenses included the $612 million of severance expense I highlighted earlier in the call, severance expense was slightly lower than a year ago. Turning to credit quality on slide nine, credit performance remained strong. Our

net loan charge-off ratio declined 10 basis points from a year ago and increased 3 basis points from the Q3. Commercial net loan charge-offs increased 4 basis points from the Q3, driven by higher commercial real estate losses, predominantly in the office portfolio. Office valuations continue to stabilize, and although we expect additional losses, which could be lumpy, they should be well within our expectations.

Consumer net loan charge-offs increased modestly from the Q3 to 75 basis points of average loans, with higher losses in credit card and auto. Since there is seasonality in these portfolios, I would note that both credit card and auto losses were lower than a year ago. As Charlie highlighted, we closely monitor our portfolios for signs of weakness, and consumers continue to be resilient as income growth

has generally kept pace with increases in inflation and debt levels. Our non-performing asset ratio declined modestly from a year ago and increased 3 basis points from the Q3, driven by higher commercial real estate and commercial and industrial non-accrual loans. The drivers of this increase were borrower-specific, and we did not see any signs of systemic weakness across the portfolio. Moving to slide 10, our allowance for credit losses for loans was relatively stable from the Q3.

Our allowance coverage ratio was down modestly and included a decline in the coverage ratio for our Corporate Investment Banking commercial real estate office portfolio to 10.1% in the Q4. Turning to capital and liquidity on slide 11, our capital levels remained strong with our CET1 ratio at 10.6%, down from the Q3, but well above our CET1 regulatory minimum plus buffers of 8.5%. We added approximately 45 basis points from earnings, which was more than offset by approximately 40

basis point reduction from common stock repurchases and an approximately 45 basis point decline from risk-weighted asset growth. We repurchased $5 billion of common stock in the Q4. Average common shares outstanding were down 6% from a year ago and have declined 26% over the past six years.

Moving to our operating segment, starting with Consumer Banking and Lending on slide 12, Consumer Small and Business Banking revenue increased 9% from a year ago, driven by lower deposit pricing and higher deposit loan balances. Home lending revenue declined 6% from a year ago due to lower net interest income from lower loan balances. Credit card revenue grew 7% from a year ago from higher

loan balances and an increase in card fees. Our new account growth has been strong, and approximately 50% of our loan balances are now from the new products we've launched since 2021. Auto revenue increased 7% from a year ago due to the higher loan balances, with auto originations more than doubling from a year ago. The decline in Personal Lending revenue from a year ago was driven by lower loan balances and loan spread compression.

Turning to commercial banking results on slide 13, revenue was down 3% from a year ago, as lower net interest income was partially offset by growth in non-interest income driven by higher revenue from tax credit investments and equity investments. Average loan balances in the Q4 grew $4.6 billion, or 2%, from the Q3, driven by higher client activity. Turning to Corporate Investment Banking on

slide 14, banking revenue declined 4% from a year ago, driven by lower investment banking revenue and the impact of lower interest rates. I would note that while investment banking revenue declined in the Q4, it was up 11% for the full year.

Investment banking revenue will vary from quarter to quarter based on the timing of when deals close, so looking at it over a longer time frame is a more meaningful way to see the momentum we are generating in this business. Commercial real estate revenue was down 3% from a year ago, driven by the impact of lower interest rates, reduced mortgage banking servicing income resulting from the sale of

our non-agency third-party servicing business in the Q1 of 2025, as well as lower loan balances. Markets revenue grew 7% from a year ago, driven by higher revenue in equities, higher commodities-related revenue from increased market volatility, as well as higher revenue in structured products.

Average loans grew 14% from a year ago and 6% from the Q3, with growth in markets and banking driven by new originations, as utilization rates on existing facilities were relatively stable from the Q3. On slide 15, wealth and investment management revenue increased 10% from a year ago, driven by growth in asset-based fees from increased market valuations, as well as higher net interest income due to lower deposit pricing and growth in deposit and loan balances. Underlying

business drivers continue to show momentum in the Q4, with growth in loan and deposit balances, as well as growth in total client assets, which benefited from the market valuations, as well as net asset flows. As a reminder, the majority of WIM advisory assets are priced at the beginning of the quarter, so Q1 results will reflect the higher January 1st market valuations.

Turning to our 2026 outlook on slide 17, we provide our expectations for net interest income. We reported $47.5 billion of net interest income in 2025, and we currently expect total net interest income to be $50 billion plus or minus in 2026. Additionally, for the first time, we are providing our net interest income expectations for our markets business. We also enhanced our disclosures related to this activity

in our financial supplement by providing more details on trading assets and liabilities on pages 6 and 7, and including disclosures in the Corporate Investment Banking segment on pages 14 and 15, as well as providing net interest income excluding markets on page 27. We believe these disclosures will provide additional transparency and insight.

As you know, we've been investing in the markets business, and while it is still a relatively small contributor to our total net interest income, its contribution has grown, and it can cause volatility in our NII outlook given changes in interest rates and other market factors. We currently expect Markets NII to grow to approximately $2 billion in 2026, driven by lower short-term funding costs and balance sheet

growth, including increased client financing activities, which, as Charlie highlighted, tend to be lower margin and lower risk assets but are accretive to net interest income. As a reminder, while Markets NII is expected to be higher, this growth is expected to be partially offset by lower non-interest income. Our focus is on growing markets revenue, which we expect to increase in 2026.

Net interest income excluding markets was $46.7 billion in 2025, and we currently expect NII excluding markets to be approximately $48 billion in 2026. Key assumptions used for our expectations include two to three rate cuts by the Federal Reserve in 2026, with 10-year Treasury rates remaining relatively stable throughout the year, which would be a modest headwind to NII. However, this expected headwind

should be more than offset by loan and deposit growth, as well as continued fixed asset repricing. Average loans are expected to grow mid-single digits from Q4 2025 to Q4 2026, driven by growth in commercial, auto, and credit card loans. All else equal, our provision expense would increase in 2026 as we set aside reserves to support this expected loan growth.

Average deposits are also expected to grow mid-single digits over this period, with growth in all of our operating segments, with stronger growth in interest-bearing versus non-interest-bearing deposits. We currently expect net interest income excluding markets to decline in the Q1 due to the impact of two fewer days. Ultimately, the amount of net interest income we earn in 2026 will depend on a variety of

factors, many of which are uncertain, including the absolute level of interest rates, the shape of the yield curve, deposit balances, mix and pricing, loan demand, and the ultimate mix of activity and volatility in markets. Turning to our 2026 expense expectations on slide 18, we continue to focus on efficiency as we simplify the company for our customers and employees while at the same time investing for the future.

Following the waterfall on the slide from left to right, our non-interest expense in 2025 was $54.8 billion. Looking at the next bar, our assumptions do not include significant additional severance for 2026, which would result in an approximately $700 million decline in severance expense. We expect revenue-related expenses in 2026 to increase by approximately $800 million in our wealth and investment management

business. As a reminder, this is a good thing, as these expenses are more than offset by higher non-interest income. Actual revenue-related expenses will be at functional market levels, with the biggest driver being the equity markets. Our outlook assumes the S&P 500 will be up modestly from current levels, but clearly, the ultimate performance of the market is uncertain.

We expect our FDIC assessment expense to increase by approximately $400 million in 2026, driven by expected deposit growth and the absence of the approximately $200 million special assessment credit that reduced FDIC expense in the Q4. We expect all other expenses to increase approximately $300 million in 2026, with the impact of efficiency initiatives more than offset by higher

investments and other expenses. We expect approximately $2.4 billion of gross expense reductions in 2026 due to efficiency initiatives. We've successfully delivered approximately $15 billion of gross expense saved since we started focusing on efficiency initiatives five years ago, and we continue to believe we have opportunities to get more efficient across the company. There are three primary expense drivers that we expect will more than offset the gross expense saved in 2026.

First, we expect approximately $1.1 billion of incremental technology expense, including investments in infrastructure and business capabilities. Second, we expect approximately $800 million of incremental other investments, including in the specific areas highlighted on the next slide. And finally, we expect other expenses to increase by approximately $800 million, including expected merit and benefit increases, as well as performance-based discretionary compensation. Additionally, other expenses

reflect approximately $400 million of lower expense following the sale of our railcar leasing business in the Q1 of 2026. However, this benefit will be offset by a reduction in non-interest income. Putting this all together, we currently expect non-interest expense to be approximately $55.7 billion in 2026. And as a reminder, the Q1 personnel expenses are seasonally higher and are expected to be approximately $700 million. On slide 19, we provide our key areas of focus for our 2026 investments across the company.

In summary, our results in 2025 reflected continued momentum in improving our financial performance. We generated strong fee-based revenue growth, maintained strong expense and credit discipline, grew our balance sheet, returned significant amounts of capital to shareholders, retained our strong capital position, and increased our return on tangible common equity. I'm excited about the opportunities ahead as we build on our momentum and further improve our results. We will now take your questions.

At this time, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please first unmute your phone and then press Star 1. Please record your name at the prompt. If you would like to withdraw your question, you may press Star 2 to remove yourself from the question queue. Once again, please press Star 1 and record your name if you would like to ask a question at this time. One moment for our first question. The first question will come from Scott Siefers of Piper Sandler. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the question. Mike, I was hoping you could just expand a little on your thoughts on NII, particularly ex markets. It looks like 2026 should be basically flat with the Q4 annualized level, despite the outlook for pretty good loan growth. It sounds like, from what you said, that's mostly going to be a function of the rate outlook, but would just love to hear your expanded thoughts on sort of the puts and takes.

Yeah, sure, Scott. Thanks for the question. You do need to adjust for day count. I mean, it's a little bit up from when you annualized the Q4. But as you said, you really got three things going on. You got rates coming down, which will be a headwind for NII ex Markets. And then you've got the continuation

of deposit and loan growth coming throughout the year. And so that'll build as you go. And so the results will look better as you get towards the latter part of the year. And at this point, the rate curve is our assumptions are pretty similar to what's in the forward curve at the moment. It's really two rate cuts with maybe another one right at the end of the year, which doesn't have much of an impact.

And then you've got the loan growth that we've been seeing across the book. I would point out some of the loan growth in places like cards will be coming in at either intro APRs or zero rate as we continue to grow the book. But when you look at the rest of the portfolio, we're seeing good growth, and that should continue as we look through the year. So it's really just those three things. When it comes to deposits and

pricing, we're not seeing anything different than what we expected to see as we come into the year. On the commercial side, the betas are what we expected as rates have been coming down. The betas are high. We do have our rates on the consumer side that have already been adjusted downward. And we're not seeing any substantial change in trend relative to what we expected. So those are the drivers that go into it.

Perfect. Perfect. Thank you, Mike. And then I guess, to the extent that you can, given how new this issue is, I was hoping you could at least please maybe address sort of this increased volume around credit card rate caps, how you're thinking about this newer issue. It doesn't sound like it's affected your appetite for growth here at all, but would just love to hear how you're sort of framing that internally.

I think, listen, I think, first of all, I think we all agree that just the underlying issue of focusing on affordability, which people have been experiencing for some time, which we've pointed out multiple times when we look at those who have less savings with us than others, is a real issue. And so what the right response to that is something that we do think should be carefully considered. And so relative to

what all this means for us, it's just too early to know because we're not quite sure what the ultimate actions of whether it's the administration or of Congress choose to go down. And that's something we hope to engage in. But we're very much aligned with trying to find solutions to help as many as we can and just do it in a way that doesn't have adverse impact.

Perfect. Okay. Good. Thank you very much for taking the questions.

The next question will come from Ken Usdin of Autonomous Research. Your line is open, sir.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Good to see the expected balance sheet growth. One of the debates is on how much you're going to continue to be able to or desire to grow the lower NIM, lower spread type of assets and RWA growth vis-à-vis your buyback opportunities and your use of CET1 capital. Can you just kind of help us understand how you're thinking through those trade-offs and what's the balancing act between the types of balance sheet growth that you're aspiring to as you think through the overall balance sheet mix?

Yeah. Sure can. I'll take a shot at that because there's a few pieces that I'll try to disaggregate for you. When you look at what's happening in the markets business and adding some of the lower ROA financing repo trades, I think those don't attract a lot of capital or RWA because of the collateral that sits behind them, right? So a lot of treasury collateral and other general collateral that sits there, and those are an important piece of the puzzle as you look to do more across the client base in the markets

business, and so you'll see that grow throughout the year for sure, but again, it doesn't attract a lot of capital or bring with it. What you're seeing across the rest of the balance sheet is growth in loans, and I think those bring varying degrees of capital depending on what they are.

Even when you look at some of the growth that we've seen in the non-bank financial space, again, given sort of the way they're structured and given the collateral that sits behind them, they don't necessarily attract as much capital as a regular way commercial loan. So I think as we look at the opportunity there, we want to be able to support clients across the broad spectrum of businesses we have. We're going to

continue to focus on the consumer side in the card space and in the auto space where we think we within our risk appetite there. Then I think on the commercial side, we'll continue to be very thoughtful about what we go after. Just to point out something we've said a lot is our risk appetite really hasn't changed. We're not looking to change that in a significant way. But now that the asset cap's gone, we've got more opportunity to continue to do more with clients. And that should create this good virtuous circle where they do more fee-based business with us as well.

Hey, let me just add a couple of things if I can. First of all, just agree, obviously, with everything that Mike said. But as we increase the financing that we do in markets business, our expectation of doing that is because we will wind up getting paid in other ways as well. And so those don't happen concurrently, but it's something that we track by client to ensure that we're actually seeing that payoff. And we'll do our best to share that as time goes on. And that will determine ultimately how much we're willing to grow the financing business, right?

The assumption is, as we've seen up until now, that we do get paid for it. But the cart's a little bit ahead of the horse on that one, kind of period by period, and we need to see that play out. And then the only other thing I would add on what Mike said in terms of just the rest of the balance sheet, just to be really clear, is this is not an either/or for us at this point, right? We have significant opportunities to be able to extend loans and use our balance sheet for customers and to continue to buy stock back. We're not on the margin; we're making the trade-off decision. But just given the amount of capital that we generate, the amount of opportunity that we have on both is significant.

And so it's a good problem to have because in the past, all we could do was buy stock back because we were limited in what we could do for clients. Now we can do both, but there's significant capacity. And as you well know, we're still above what we've said our targeted range of capital should be. And we've also said that our targeted range still has significant buffers on top of the regulatory buffers. And that's something that we'll evaluate as the regulators finalize the capital proposals and the other things that we would be able to step back and say, "Okay, what do we think that means for us going forward?" But it's all positive for us to have flexibility.

Yeah. And Charlie, my follow-up just on that last point, 10.6 exiting the year, and you mentioned the 10, 10 and a half range outlook. Does that mean that you're also comfortable gliding towards the lower end, which would still give you a lot of buffer to your earlier point?

Yeah. I mean, look, we gave a range kind of 10-10.5. And so that would mean we're comfortable operating in the range, right? So.

The next question will come from Ebrahim Poonawala of Bank of America. Your line is open.

Good morning. I just want to follow up. I so completely appreciate what you're saying in terms of focus on profitability while you're growing the businesses. We heard JPMorgan talk about investing in businesses and investing capital where their returns are probably sub 17%. I think maybe, Mike, Charlie, to the extent I think that's one concern that you hear persistently over the last few months is how do you

grow the business while improving the ROTCE, capital leverage aside? Maybe if you don't mind double-clicking on some of the expense and the efficiency initiatives you laid out on slide 18, and I think you mentioned that even beyond 2026, you see that just trying to get a better sense of the outsized efficiency opportunity that Wells has to achieve that ROTCE while delivering superior growth. Thank you.

Yeah. Let me just start out, Mike, and then I'll hand it over to you for some real facts. But just what we have been doing I mean, what we're talking about doing is a continuation of what we have been doing, right, which is we believe that we continue to have opportunities going forward. And if you look at what we've been able to do, we've cut $15 billion of expenses out of the company. As we've said, a couple of years ago, we had increased our regulatory expenses by $2 billion-$2.5 billion on an annual basis. And our expenses have come down. And so if you look at what that difference in all that is, that is a significant amount of money that we've been able to use to reinvest, to position ourselves for growth.

And that's very much of the way that we continue to think about what we want to accomplish here, which is we think we have more tools on a going forward basis to get more efficient than we've ever had, especially with AI. And we're going to continue to figure out what we think the right trade-off is to reinvest those savings into driving growth inside the company as we've done in the past. But as we think about what we've done to be able to increase the returns of the company, it is either what we've done is we've reduced the expense base of the company while we've grown revenues. And so there's not a lot of rocket science to what we're trying to accomplish here. It's more of the same.

We feel like we're in a great position to both use the benefits that we get by driving increased efficiency to contain any expense growth at this point and to see the benefits of those investments come through to increase revenue growth.

And Ebrahim, maybe I'll just point out some things we saw in 2025 that sort of go at what Charlie said. The credit card business, new accounts up 20% year on year. Auto lending balances up 19%. Loans in the commercial side up 12%. Growth in investment banking, 12% investment banking fee growth. WIM fees up significantly. And then if you look at it over a slightly longer time period, you also see trading up substantially. And so a lot of. Trading up, banking up.

Yeah. And so a lot of what Charlie talked about is coming through in the results while we're getting more efficient. And I think as we've said a number of times, but also in sort of the prepared remarks, is that we're just getting started in terms of really realizing the opportunity we have across each of the businesses.

That is helpful, and I guess maybe just a separate question on capital. M&A comes up a lot in the context of Wells rightly or wrongly now, and I appreciate you're going to be disciplined and you should be looking for sort of strategic opportunities, but just remind us when we think about M&A, either wealth management or bank M&A, just how you're thinking about it, what do you think makes strategic sense where it would not be a distraction from what you're trying to achieve organically? Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, I'll start with probably the most important thing, which is we feel no pressure to do any M&A whatsoever in any of our businesses because we feel so good about the quality and the completeness of our franchise and the opportunities that we have. And not everyone's in that position, and we feel blessed to be in that position. But as you point out, it's wrong not to say we would never think

Wells Fargo (WFC) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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