Wells Fargo

Is Wells Fargo safe?

For your deposits, yes. Money at Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is FDIC-insuredDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary up to $250,000 per depositor, per ownership category, and the bank itself is well capitalised: a CET1 ratioCET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary of 10.26% at 30 June 2026 against an 8.50% requirement, and a liquidity coverage ratioLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary of 119%. What Wells Fargo lacks is a clean record. We score it 73/100, a point or two below Bank of America, almost entirely because of conduct.

Seven years under a cap

In February 2018 the Federal Reserve did something it had never done to a bank of this size. It barred Wells Fargo from growing its balance sheet beyond about $1.95 trillion until it fixed the governance failures behind the fake-accounts scandal. The cap stayed in place for more than seven years. On 3 June 2025 the Fed announced that Wells Fargo had met all the conditions and was no longer subject to the restriction.

For customers, the cap never threatened deposits. It limited how fast the bank could grow, which is one reason its balance sheet today is mostly plain US consumer and commercial banking, with less trading than its large peers.

The scandal and the bills

Between 2002 and 2016, according to the Justice Department, sales pressure led employees to open millions of accounts and products without customers' consent. The fallout in the last decade:

• April 2018: $1 billion to the CFPB and OCC over car-insurance and mortgage-fee practices.
• February 2020: $3 billion to the Justice Department and SEC to resolve criminal and civil investigations into the sales practices. The bank admitted the facts in a deferred prosecution agreement.
• December 2022: the CFPB ordered $2 billion in redress and a $1.7 billion penalty for errors across car loans, mortgages and deposit accounts that, it said, led to wrongful foreclosures and repossessions.

This is a pattern of repeated harm to retail customers, not one bad trading desk, and it is why conduct scores 35, the lowest of any US bank on SafetyScorer. Several older consent orders have since been closed. The lifting of the asset cap is the clearest sign that regulators think the worst is over.

Capital and ratings

	Moody's	S&P	Fitch
Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.	Aa2	A+	AA-
Wells Fargo & Company	A1	BBB+ (positive outlook)	A+

The bank's ratings are close to those of JPMorgan Chase. The CET1CET1 ratioA bank's highest-quality capital (mainly shares and retained profits) as a share of its risk-weighted assets. Higher means more room to absorb losses.More in the glossary cushion of about 1.8 points over the requirement is wider than Bank of America's but narrower than JPMorgan's. Wells Fargo is in bucket 1 of the FSB's list of global systemically important banksG-SIBA global systemically important bank: one of the large banks the Financial Stability Board lists each year because its failure could harm the world economy.More in the glossary, the lowest surcharge, because its business is mainly domestic.

Liquidity and 2008

Wells Fargo's funding is dominated by US consumer and small-business deposits, which tend not to run. Its LCRLiquidity coverage ratioA bank's cash and easy-to-sell assets compared with the money that could flow out in a 30-day crisis. It must be at least 100%.More in the glossary has stayed at 119% to 121% over the past year. In 2008 it bought Wachovia, then on the brink of failure, without government assistance, though it accepted $25 billion of TARP capital that autumn. It repaid that in December 2009. Since then it has not needed help.

Outages and digital safety

Wells Fargo has had more visible operational failures than its peers. In February 2019 smoke at a data centre took down online and mobile banking for many customers for about a day. In March 2023 a technical problem meant some direct deposits did not show in accounts. The app offers two-step verificationTwo-factor authenticationSigning in with a second proof of identity on top of your password, such as a code from an app, a security key or a passkey.More in the glossary, card on/off controls and alerts. As at other Zelle banks, scam payments you authorise yourself are hard to recover.

Practical steps for Wells Fargo customers

• Check which entity holds each product. Bank accounts are FDIC-insuredDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary; brokerage accounts at Wells Fargo Advisors are SIPC-covered and not deposits.
• Stay at or under $250,000 per ownership category. Joint, retirement and trust accounts each get separate cover.
• Turn on alerts for every outgoing transfer and card transaction. During an outage, use only the official app or website and ignore texts with links.
• If you were affected by past sales-practice or loan errors, the CFPB and the bank's own remediation pages list how redress was paid.

How we scored it

Liquidity (80), stability history (80) and deposit protectionDeposit insuranceA government-backed scheme that repays bank customers up to a set limit if their bank fails, such as the FDIC in the US or the FSCS in the UK.More in the glossary (89) are solid. Conduct (35) is the weakest factor by a wide margin, reflecting fake-accounts penalties of several billion dollars and a growth cap that lasted from 2018 to 2025. See also Citibank.