Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo dates its founding to March 18, 1852, and uses the stagecoach as its brand symbol.⁠[1]

In 1850 Henry Wells, William G. Fargo and their associates merged their businesses as American Express Company. After gold was found in California, demand grew for coast-to-coast communication, freight and payment services; when most of the American Express board declined to expand to the Pacific Coast, the two founded Wells, Fargo & Co. in March 1852.⁠[2]

The company was established to handle banking and express business, and later operated the western portion of the Pony Express route, from Salt Lake City to San Francisco.⁠[3]

In 1905 Wells Fargo’s banking operations in California were separated from its express operations, and in 1918 its domestic express operations were taken over by American Railway Express Company. In 1960 the bank merged with American Trust Company, which dated to 1854.⁠[3]

In 1986 Wells Fargo bought Crocker National Corporation from Britain’s Midland Bank for about $1.1 billion. In October 1995 it made a hostile bid for First Interstate, and the final deal was valued at $11.3 billion.⁠[4]

On November 2, 1998, the former Wells Fargo & Company was merged into a wholly owned subsidiary of Norwest Corporation, which changed its name to Wells Fargo & Company, with headquarters in San Francisco. Based on year-end 1998 assets, it was the seventh-largest U.S. bank holding company, with banks in 21 states.⁠[5]

Norwest traced to Northwest Bancorporation, formed in Minnesota’s Twin Cities in 1929 and renamed in 1983. The merger was valued at $31.7 billion, and Norwest’s Richard M. KovacevichRichard KovacevichRichard Kovacevich is a banking executive, former chairman and chief executive of Wells Fargo, and a former Theranos director and investor.Open the full entry became president and CEO of the combined company.⁠[4]

Wells Fargo’s merger with Wachovia Corporation took effect on December 31, 2008, with Wachovia shareholders receiving 0.1991 shares of Wells Fargo common stock for each Wachovia share. The combined company had $1.4 trillion in assets, almost 11,000 stores and 276,000 team members.⁠[6]

Spurred by sales targets and incentives, employees covertly opened accounts; the bank found more than two million deposit and credit card accounts that may not have been authorized. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined it $100 million, the Office of the Comptroller of the CurrencyOffice of the Comptroller of the CurrencyThe Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is an independent U.S. Treasury bureau that supervises national banks and other institutions.Open the full entry (OCC) $35 million, and the City and County of Los Angeles received $50 million.⁠[7]

Chairman John Stumpf, CEO since June 2007, retired effective immediately; President and COO Tim Sloan became CEO, Stephen Sanger non-executive Chairman and Elizabeth Duke Vice Chair.⁠[8]

The Federal Reserve ordered that, until it improved governance and controls, Wells Fargo could not grow beyond its total assets at the end of 2017; the company also agreed to replace four directors.⁠[9]

The CFPB assessed a $1 billion penalty against Wells Fargo Bank, with the OCC’s $500 million penalty credited toward it. The OCC cited deficient compliance risk management, improper collateral protection insurance on auto loans and improper interest rate lock extension fees, and ordered restitution.⁠[10]

Tim Sloan resigned in March 2019, and General Counsel C. Allen Parker served as interim CEO. On September 27, 2019, Wells Fargo named Charlie Scharf, chairman and CEO of BNY Mellon and a former CEO of Visa, as CEO; he started on October 21, and Parker returned to his role as general counsel.⁠[11]

Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3 billion to resolve criminal and civil liability over sales practices and entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement. Between 2002 and 2016, sales pressure led to millions of accounts or products provided without consent.⁠[12]

The CFPB ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay more than $2 billion in consumer redress and a $1.7 billion penalty for violations including wrongly repossessing vehicles, improperly denying mortgage modifications and charging overdraft fees when consumers had enough funds. The order has since ceased to be in effect.⁠[13]

The OCC terminated its 2016 consent order concerning deficiencies in Wells Fargo’s risk management and sales practices. CEO Scharf said it was the sixth consent order affecting the bank terminated by regulators since 2019.⁠[14]

The OCC terminated its 2018 consent order on Wells Fargo’s compliance risk management program, the tenth consent order closed by the company’s regulators since 2019, following the termination of three others in the previous three weeks.⁠[15]

The Federal Reserve announced that Wells Fargo had met all conditions of the 2018 enforcement action for removing the growth restriction and was no longer subject to it; the action’s other provisions remain until the bank meets the requirements for their termination.⁠[16]

The $1.95 trillion cap had kept the bank from growing for seven years. By then Wells Fargo had closed 14 consent orders since 2019, eight of them in 2025.⁠[17]

Scharf called the lifting of the cap “a pivotal milestone in our journey to transform Wells Fargo.” The company also announced a special $2,000 award for all full-time employees, mostly in restricted stock.⁠[18]

On July 31, 2025, the Wells Fargo board announced its intention to name CEO Scharf as Chairman and granted him $30 million in restricted share rights and 1,046,000 stock options; Steven Black was then Chairman.⁠[19]

Effective October 14, 2025, Scharf became Chairman of the Board while remaining CEO.⁠[20]

Wells Fargo’s 2025 total revenue was $83.699 billion (2024: $82.296 billion), with net income of $21.338 billion and diluted earnings per share of $6.26. Scharf cited the “removal of the asset cap imposed by the Federal Reserve, termination of multiple consent orders” among the year’s achievements.⁠[21]

At December 31, 2025, the company had assets of about $2.1 trillion and about 205,000 active employees, roughly 76% in the United States, and four reportable operating segments; its common stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange as WFC. The remaining provisions of the Federal Reserve’s 2018 consent order are still in place.⁠[22]