CEO, Wells Fargo
Charlie Scharf speaks with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo
Wells Fargo Chairman & CEO Charlie Scharf joins Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo to discuss how Wells Fargo is serving customers, what current consumer data signals about resilience, and how the company is positioned for growth. In the conversation, Scharf highlights expanding loans and deposits, supporting trading flow, and investing across the business to do more for customers, communities, and the broader economy.
About Charlie Scharf
Charlie Scharf, chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo, has been discussing the bank’s growth and strategy following the Federal Reserve’s 2025 removal of a $2 trillion asset cap that had been in place since 2018. In multiple media appearances, Scharf stated that the bank is now focused on expanding loans and deposits, and that it has seen 19% growth in trading revenues and 15% growth in its investment bank. He said the bank has moved from 14th to 8th in M&A advisory and has been involved in some of the largest transactions. Scharf attributed the bank’s ability to invest in areas such as credit cards and auto lending to the lifting of the cap, and noted that the bank had previously been forced to turn away deposits. Regarding the broader economy, Scharf described the U.S. consumer as “remarkable” and “in great shape,” citing strong employment and wage growth as key drivers. He said that as long as those factors hold, the consumer will do fine. On the Federal Reserve, Scharf described the independence of the central bank as “critically important” and welcomed the nomination of Kevin Warsh as Fed chair, calling him “incredibly bright” and saying a fresh look at policies would be a positive development. Scharf also said there is a “pretty clear consensus” that lowering interest rates would be the wrong thing to do until the Iran conflict is resolved. He stated that private credit is not currently large enough to pose a systemic risk.
Transcript (23 segments)
✨ AI-enhanced transcript with speaker attribution
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Interviewer0:00
Join me now for this Fox Business exclusive is the chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo, Charlie Scharf, who is going to be on stage this morning. Charlie, it is great to have you before your remarks.
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Charlie Scharf0:10
It's great to be here.
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Interviewer0:10
Thanks so much for being here. You've been the chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo since late 2019, but when you came into the company, you had to deal with lots of regulatory issues. You spent a lot of time doing that. The Federal Reserve last year lifted the two trillion dollar cap on assets that had been in place since 2018. How has that changed things, and tell us where the company is going now that you don't have that cap on assets in place anymore?
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Charlie Scharf0:36
Yeah, well, it's remarkable. We're a totally different company in terms of the things we can focus on today versus when I first got to Wells. We had tens of thousands of people working incredibly hard to deal with the issues we had to deal with. We've done that, and now it's about how we can do more for the consumers and corporate customers we do business with. So we're growing loans, we're growing deposits, we're expanding the balance sheet to serve customers and markets with trading flow. It's incredibly exciting because those are the types of things that large banks are able to do to help the economy grow. We weren't able to do that for a long time, and to be in a position to do that is what motivates people to come into work every day and help others.
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Interviewer1:20
That is a big deal, Charlie. Congratulations on that. Does this mean you are now returning to focusing on increasing deposits?
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Charlie Scharf1:27
Absolutely.
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Interviewer1:28
Yeah.
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Charlie Scharf1:29
Yeah, I mean, when we had the asset cap put in, I'm not sure people contemplated that that was also a deposit cap because deposits come with cash. But we had to turn away deposits. In fact, as people started to draw on revolvers and things during COVID, we actually had to proactively say, 'Please take your deposits elsewhere.' Really hard thing for a bank to do. And so now we go to our customers and say, 'We're here for you. We want to do more for you.' And they've been wonderful. So when you look at our results over the last quarter, loans up 11% on a year-over-year basis, deposits up 8% on a year-over-year basis. That's something that we were unable to do for a long time, and hopefully that's just the beginning of a trend that we'll see which will help drive growth in the company.
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Interviewer2:12
Very good. All right, let's talk about the company and what you're seeing from these business lines, the consumer housing. How would you assess the consumer right now?
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Charlie Scharf2:20
The consumer is remarkable. When you just look at the facts and data, it just continues to say that consumers are willing to spend. We look at all pieces: consumer spend, delinquencies, and savings rates. All three continue to remain very strong. Credit card and debit card spend up 8 to 10% on a year-over-year basis, up a little bit more than it had been a couple of months ago. Some of that's driven by the increased price of fuel, but all other categories are also up slightly as well. Delinquencies extremely strong, possibly getting even a little bit better. And we just don't see a dent in savings rates. So you look at those things, and overall the consumer's in great shape. Obviously, the higher end doing better than those who have less money, but we just don't see a lot of change in terms of anything that would be something in the facts that would make you really worried.
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Interviewer3:22
Are you surprised that the consumer is holding up as well as he or she is, and this market performance has been unstoppable even in the face of a war with Iran?
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Charlie Scharf3:31
Yeah, I think it's employment and wages. That's what drives consumers. They listen to all the other things that are going on, they see what's going on in the war. That drives sentiment, but ultimately what they do is they come home and they look at what's in their bank account and they figure out how much they can afford to spend. And reality is employment is still extremely strong, and at least the data that we see based on direct deposit wage growth, wage growth is still hanging in there. So overall, as long as those things continue to hold up, the consumer will do fine. If those things change, it's a different story.
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Interviewer4:05
And this performance and the lifting of the cap has enabled you to invest in the business again, like the credit card business. Tell us about that.
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Charlie Scharf4:14
Yeah, I mean, we're looking at it and saying, 'How can we do more?' That's what we're here for. So whether it's the lifting of the asset cap, the changes in capital rules, regulation, these are all things that enable us to do more in our communities for the people that we're there to serve. And so, yes, we've grown our credit card balances from 35 billion to 50 billion dollars. We're investing in building out our auto lending business. We're lending more towards small businesses and middle market companies. And that's what we're there for. So that's why it's such an incredible, exciting time for us. It's in the backdrop of an environment which is as good as it can be. Not going to go on forever, for sure. And so you have to have that in your mind. But at this point, we don't see something economically which is going to change that.
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Interviewer5:03
Which is also giving you an allowance to get rid of non-core businesses and focus on where the growth is. Let me get your take on the Fed because Kevin Warsh, now the chairman, he's got his first meeting next month. What's your expectation for how things change and how does that impact Wells?
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Charlie Scharf5:19
One of the things I've learned going in as I've done different jobs in my career is fresh looks are always good things. Kevin is incredibly bright, has incredible experience both in the private sector and at the Fed, which is a huge plus. So to come in and be able to take a fresh look at policies, whether it's the size of the balance sheet, trajectory of interest rates, different analyses to do, that's a good thing. I actually think it's going to be a huge plus for the conversation within the Fed about how to think about some things a little bit differently.
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Interviewer5:55
Now, you talked about lending and housing a bit, but what about capital markets? Because you've said that you want the company to be in the top five capital markets players in investment banking and trading. How do you get there?
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Charlie Scharf6:06
Correct. Well, it's area by area. We're huge lenders to companies in this country. We lend as much money in the US as any other bank. We have a huge treasury services business. And we want to be in a position to provide more strategic advice and access to the public markets. So it's hiring people, it's using our balance sheet wisely. And so what we see is last quarter 90% growth in our trading revenues, 15% growth in our investment bank. We've gone from 14 to 8 in M&A, involved in some of the largest transactions out there. It's not linear. We're not doing it by changing the risk tolerance of the company dramatically. It's just figuring out who our customer base is, how we can do a better job calling on them, and asking for our fair share, showing up in a credible way.
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Interviewer6:50
Can you get in on these big deals? SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI IPOs?
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Charlie Scharf6:54
We've been involved in a lot of the big deals. I mean, if you look at the biggest M&A deals last year, we were involved in, I think, like three of the five. We were involved in the big energy deal recently. We'll be a part of those. We don't have the long relationships that some of the other companies have that have been calling on these companies. So it takes time, but it's linear progress. We're not expecting exponential progress in any of these things. And if we do that, it'll pay off over time.
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Interviewer7:17
Charlie, congratulations. You've turned things around. We appreciate you joining us.
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Charlie Scharf7:20
Thanks for having me.
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Interviewer7:20
Thank you so much. Charlie Scharf is the chairman and CEO at Wells Fargo.