Wells Fargo Bank

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), the parent of Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., is a financial services company headquartered in San Francisco, California, and founded in 1852. Henry Wells and William G. Fargo started it to provide express and banking services to California during the Gold Rush. Today it has approximately $2.3 trillion in assets, is considered one of the "Big Four" U.S. banks, and ranked No. 38 on Fortune's 2026 list of America's largest corporations. It had about 205,000 employees at the end of 2025.

Wells Fargo provides banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth and Investment Management. Chairman and CEO Charlie Scharf, formerly chief executive of BNY Mellon and of Visa, has led the company since October 2019. On June 3, 2025, the Federal Reserve lifted the asset growth restriction it had imposed on Wells Fargo in 2018. For the third quarter of 2026, the company reported preliminary net income of $6.0 billion on revenue of $21.9 billion, with average deposits of about $1.48 trillion and average loans of about $1.03 trillion.

In 1866 Wells Fargo united the Wells Fargo, Holladay, and Overland Mail stage lines under its name, and in 1905 it separated its bank from its express business. It merged with Minneapolis-based Norwest Corporation in 1998, keeping the Wells Fargo name, and became a coast-to-coast bank after agreeing in October 2008 to acquire Wachovia.

In Southern California, Wells Fargo's 1986 purchase of Crocker National Bank doubled its branch network in the region, and its 1996 acquisition of Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bancorp for $11.6 billion added a bank holding company with 1,133 offices in California and 12 other western states. After the January 2025 Eaton and Palisades wildfires, the Wells Fargo Foundation raised its relief grants from $2 million to $5 million, supporting the American Red Cross, the California Community Foundation, the Pasadena Community Foundation, and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation.