Strong consumer results push Wells Fargo profits higher

• Forward look: Wells Fargo is projecting $50 billion in 2026 net interest income, a 5% increase over the 2025 result.
• Expert quote: "The cash flow, the spending levels, the credit performance has all been quite good so far." — Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo, commenting on Wells' consumer results
• Supporting data: Wells' total assets reached $2.15 trillion on Dec. 31. They've increased about 7% since June, when regulators terminated a $1.95 trillion asset cap.
  

UPDATE: This story includes comments that CEO Charlie Scharf made during a call with analysts on Wednesday.

Wells Fargo reported strong results in its wealth and consumer-banking business lines as its $5.4 billion profit for the three months ending Dec. 31 finished 5.5% higher than the comparable 2024 result.

For all of 2025, the San Francisco-based Wells reported net income totaling $21.3 billion, up 7% over 2024.

Though Wells' fourth-quarter earnings were crimped by $612 million in severance costs, the company is entering 2026 "in a position of strength," CEO Charlie Scharf said in a press release.

Scharf touted growth across the company, but that trend was most prominent in the wealth and consumer-banking spaces. Auto originations more than doubled to $10.2 billion compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, while credit-card purchase volume jumped 10% to $49.7 billion. At the same time, revenue from wealth and investment management reached $4.3 billion, up 10% year over year.

"People are very active," Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo said Wednesday on a conference call with reporters. "The cash flow, the spending levels, the credit performance has all been quite good so far. There's no reason to think that won't continue, at least as we look into the early part of 2026."

Wells reported $600 billion in total commercial loans at Dec. 31, up 12% from the same period in 2024. Total loans were $986 billion, representing a 5% increase. "We saw the pace of loan growth pick up for the first time in a while," Santomassimo said.

Deposits totaled $1.43 billion at Dec. 31, increasing 4% year over year as Wells rid itself of the regulatory guardrails that had limited overall balance-sheet growth. Prior to June, operating under a regulatory asset cap, Wells was unable to accept large deposits from many corporate and middle-market clients, Scharf noted at an investor conference in December.

"We pushed a lot of that outside of Wells Fargo over the past bunch of years, [but] we can now compete on a much more level playing field," Scharf said at the time.

During the fourth quarter, Wells kept its operating costs in check, with noninterest expenses declining $174 million, or 1%, compared to the same period in 2024. At $1.05 billion, net chargeoffs were up 11% from the third quarter of 2025, but down 14% from year-end 2024. Assets totaled $2.15 trillion at Dec. 31.

Wells is targeting $50 billion in net interest income for all of 2025, up 5% over the 2025 total of $47.5 billion. The bank is also forecasting $55.7 billion in full-year 2026 operating expenses, up 1.6% from the $54.6 billion reported for 2025.

In October, Wells raised its medium-term return-on-tangible-common-equity target to 17%-18% from its previous 15% guidance.

On Wednesday, Wells reiterated the 17%-to-18% return-on-tangible-common-equity target. Scharf said the company expects to exceed that range eventually, but he bristled when Wolfe Research Analyst Steven Chubak asked for a timeline.

"Let's be a little reasonable here," Scharf said during a conference call with analysts. "We don't know what the credit environment will be over the next [one-to-five] years. We don't know what the interest curve is going to be. We don't know what the market will do. … Life isn't a straight line in these businesses, which is why we want to stay away from putting any specific time frame out."

Chubak, for his part, noted some of Wells' peers provide timelines for their return forecasts.

Also during the call with analysts, Scharf was asked about Wells Fargo's prospects for mergers and acquisitions. He didn't rule out deals, but said the bar for any such transaction would be high in terms of financial impact.

"We feel no pressure to do any M&A whatsoever in any of our businesses because we feel so good about the quality and completeness of our franchise and the opportunities that we have," Scharf said.