Scope first: this is a bank-entity comparison, not a stock comparison of JPM, BAC, and WFC. The operating data below compare JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (RSSD 852218), Bank of America, N.A. (RSSD 480228), and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (RSSD 451965). The public parent companies include non-bank subsidiaries and holding-company activity that are outside a Call Report view.
That distinction matters. Bank legal-entity data show deposits, loans, securities, insured-bank capital, and operating ratios. G-SIB surcharges and stress capital buffers apply at the parent-company or covered organization level, so they belong in a separate regulatory context table rather than mixed into the bank-level snapshot.
Q4 2025 Bank-Entity Snapshot
The table uses Q4 2025 bank legal-entity regulatory reporting and performance ratios, with figures rounded for readability.[1] Lower efficiency ratios are better. Deposit and loan ratios are calculated from the same bank-level data.
| Metric | JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. RSSD 852218 |
Bank of America, N.A. RSSD 480228 |
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. RSSD 451965 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total assets | $3.75T | $2.64T | $1.82T |
| Total deposits | $2.70T | $2.10T | $1.48T |
| Net loans and leases | $1.47T | $1.17T | $0.94T |
| Deposits / assets | ~72% | ~80% | ~81% |
| Net loans / deposits | ~54% | ~56% | ~63% |
| Net interest margin | ~3.0% | ~2.6% | ~3.3% |
| Return on assets | ~1.2% | ~1.2% | ~1.4% |
| Return on equity | ~13.7% | ~12.6% | ~14.4% |
| Efficiency ratio | ~52% | ~46% | ~54% |
| CET1 ratio, lower reported approach | ~15.3% | ~12.5% | ~12.8% |
Quick Read
- Profitability is split, not one-dimensional. Wells Fargo Bank leads this bank-level snapshot on ROE and NIM, Bank of America, N.A. has the lowest efficiency ratio, and JPMorgan Chase Bank is the largest absolute earnings and balance-sheet engine.
- Funding mix favors the deposit-dense banks. Wells Fargo Bank and Bank of America, N.A. fund a larger share of their assets with deposits than JPMorgan Chase Bank, while JPMorgan still has the largest absolute deposit base.
- Diversification still points to JPMorgan. The bank entity is more than twice Wells Fargo Bank’s size by assets, and the parent organization carries the highest G-SIB surcharge because the broader group is larger and more complex.
- The Wells Fargo asset-cap story changed. Wells should be analyzed as a post-cap institution in March 2026, not as a bank still legally capped. The current question is how it uses regained balance-sheet flexibility.
- The key caveat: this is a bank-level fundamentals comparison with a separate parent-company regulatory overlay. It is not a valuation call and not a full holding-company comparison.
Parent-Company Capital Context Belongs In Its Own Table
The following rows are not Call Report metrics for the bank legal entities. They are parent-company or covered organization capital requirements published by the Federal Reserve for large banks, effective October 1, 2025.[2]
| Parent organization | Minimum CET1 | Stress capital buffer | G-SIB surcharge | Total CET1 requirement |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | 4.5% | 2.5% | 4.5% | 11.5% |
| Bank of America Corporation | 4.5% | 2.5% | 3.0% | 10.0% |
| Wells Fargo & Company | 4.5% | 2.5% | 1.5% | 8.5% |
This table explains why the familiar big-bank narrative still matters even inside a bank-level article. All three parent companies are in the Federal Reserve’s U.S. G-SIB supervisory program, but the surcharge differs sharply.[3] The Basel G-SIB methodology is built around size, interconnectedness, substitutability, cross-jurisdictional activity, and complexity.[4] JPMorgan’s higher surcharge is therefore a regulatory expression of breadth and complexity, not just a label analysts apply in prose.
The practical point is simple: JPMorgan’s diversification comes with a higher parent-company capital burden. Wells Fargo’s lower surcharge gives it a lower parent-level CET1 requirement, but that advantage is not automatic earnings power. It only matters if the company can add assets and revenue without increasing credit risk, expense intensity, or systemic-complexity scores faster than earnings.
JPMorgan Chase Bank: Scale Is The First Fact
JPMorgan Chase Bank is the largest of the three bank entities in the Q4 2025 snapshot: about $3.75 trillion in assets, $2.70 trillion in deposits, and $1.47 trillion in net loans and leases. Its bank entity is roughly 42% larger than Bank of America, N.A. and a little more than twice the size of Wells Fargo Bank by assets.
That scale does not translate into a clean sweep across ratios. JPMorgan’s efficiency ratio is stronger than Wells Fargo Bank’s but not Bank of America, N.A.’s. Its ROE trails Wells Fargo Bank in this bank-level snapshot, though it remains the largest absolute earnings engine. That is the right way to read JPMorgan here: not simply the highest ratio, but the broadest and largest platform.
The tradeoff is visible in the parent-company capital table. JPMorgan’s 4.5% G-SIB surcharge is the highest of the three, which means the group pays a larger regulatory capital cost for breadth. For investors and analysts, that turns diversification into a two-sided factor: it can stabilize earnings across business lines, but it also raises the capital hurdle that the broader organization must clear.
Bank of America, N.A.: Deposit Scale With A Lean Bank Entity
Bank of America, N.A. has about $2.64 trillion in assets and $2.10 trillion in deposits. Its deposits-to-assets ratio is roughly 80%, close to Wells Fargo Bank and well above JPMorgan Chase Bank’s roughly 72%. That makes the bank entity meaningfully deposit-dense.
The more interesting number is efficiency. In this snapshot, Bank of America, N.A. has the lowest efficiency ratio of the three, around 46%. That does not mean the full parent company is necessarily the simplest or most efficient organization. It means the principal bank entity, viewed through regulatory reporting, is converting revenue into pre-expense profitability with less apparent cost burden than the other two bank entities.
The offset is margin. Bank of America, N.A.’s net interest margin is lower than Wells Fargo Bank’s and JPMorgan Chase Bank’s in the table. That combination – deposit density, lower margin, and strong efficiency – makes Bank of America less of a simple profitability leader and more of a funding-and-operating-discipline story. Small changes in deposit pricing, securities yields, and loan growth can matter a lot because the platform is so large.
Wells Fargo Bank: The Story Is Now Post-Cap Execution
Wells Fargo Bank is smaller than the other two bank entities, with about $1.82 trillion in assets and $1.48 trillion in deposits. It is also the most deposit-dense of the three in this snapshot and has the highest reported ROE and NIM among the bank entities shown.
The old framing – that Wells Fargo is currently constrained by the Fed asset cap – is no longer accurate for a March 2026 article. The Federal Reserve announced on June 3, 2025 that Wells Fargo was no longer subject to the asset growth restriction from the 2018 enforcement action.[5] The Fed then announced on March 5, 2026 that it had terminated the 2018 enforcement action after determining Wells had met the required conditions.[6]
That update changes the analysis. The asset cap still matters historically because it shaped years of balance-sheet decisions and limited growth options while JPMorgan and Bank of America could expand more freely. But it is not the current legal ceiling. The current test is whether Wells can use post-cap flexibility without rebuilding the kind of governance, risk-management, or expense problems that made the restriction costly in the first place.
Wells also has the lowest parent-company G-SIB surcharge of the three. That is a useful advantage only if growth stays disciplined. If Wells uses new balance-sheet capacity to deepen domestic banking relationships, the lower complexity profile can remain valuable. If it chases growth in activities that raise cross-jurisdictional activity, substitutability, or complexity, part of that regulatory advantage can erode over time.
Credit Is Not The Deciding Metric Here
Credit quality still matters, but the aggregate Q4 2025 comparison does not turn mainly on a broad nonperforming-loan blowout. The sharper questions are inside the loan mix: card and consumer loss normalization, commercial real estate pockets, C&I exposure, reserve coverage, and how much pre-provision earnings each bank has to absorb deterioration.
That is why a single credit ratio is a weak shortcut for these three institutions. JPMorgan’s breadth gives it more earnings channels. Bank of America’s funding base and efficiency can support absorption if credit costs rise. Wells Fargo’s cleaner post-cap story depends on proving that growth does not come with worse underwriting or higher operating drag.
The Cleaner Ranking By Lens
| Lens | Best read from this comparison | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Absolute scale | JPMorgan Chase Bank | Largest assets, deposits, and loan base among the three bank entities. |
| Profitability snapshot | Split | Wells Fargo Bank leads on ROE and NIM; Bank of America, N.A. leads on efficiency; JPMorgan Chase Bank leads on absolute earnings scale. |
| Funding density | Wells Fargo Bank and Bank of America, N.A. | Both have deposits near 80% or more of assets, compared with roughly 72% at JPMorgan Chase Bank. |
| Diversification | JPMorgan parent organization | The highest G-SIB surcharge reflects greater size and complexity at the consolidated organization level. |
| Regulatory constraint | Wells Fargo has improved optionality | The asset growth restriction was lifted in 2025 and the 2018 enforcement action was terminated in 2026. |
Bottom Line
A fundamentals-only comparison works best when the entity level is clean. At the bank legal-entity level, JPMorgan Chase Bank is the biggest platform, Bank of America, N.A. shows a deposit-rich and efficient bank profile, and Wells Fargo Bank looks newly post-cap with strong bank-level profitability metrics but a still-important execution burden.
At the parent-company level, the G-SIB surcharge adds a different lens: JPMorgan carries the highest capital complexity cost, Bank of America sits in the middle, and Wells Fargo has the lowest surcharge of the three. Those parent requirements should inform the interpretation, but they should not be placed inside a Call Report table as if they were bank-level rows.
For ongoing quarter-by-quarter work, Banking Intelligence can help keep those levels separate. Use the side-by-side comparison view, institution lookup, and metrics catalog to compare bank legal entities through public regulatory data without blurring them with parent-company disclosures.
FAQ
Is this a comparison of JPM, BAC, and WFC stocks?
No. This article compares the principal bank legal entities. The parent tickers include additional subsidiaries, capital markets operations, and holding-company items that require a separate framework.
Is Wells Fargo still under the Fed asset cap?
No. The Fed lifted the asset growth restriction on June 3, 2025 and terminated the 2018 enforcement action on March 5, 2026. The relevant question is now post-cap execution.
Why include G-SIB surcharges at all if this is bank-level?
Because they explain the parent-company regulatory cost of complexity. They are useful context, but they are not Call Report metrics for the insured bank entities.
Sources
- https://cdr.ffiec.gov/public/ManageFacsimiles.aspx – FFIEC Central Data Repository Public Data Distribution, Call Report and UBPR source for Q4 2025 bank legal-entity data by RSSD.
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/large-bank-capital-requirements-20250829.pdf – Federal Reserve, Large Bank Capital Requirements, August 2025.
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/supervisionreg/global-systemically-important-banks.htm – Federal Reserve G-SIB supervisory program page.
- https://www.bis.org/bcbs/publ/d445.htm – Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, G-SIB revised assessment methodology and higher loss absorbency requirement.
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/enforcement20250603a.htm – Federal Reserve announcement lifting Wells Fargo’s asset growth restriction, June 3, 2025.
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/enforcement20260305a.htm – Federal Reserve announcement terminating the 2018 Wells Fargo enforcement action, March 5, 2026.