Over the past 35 years, there has been a tendency in the United States toward bank consolidation. In actuality, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation insured 14,427 banks in 1985. (FDIC). However, there were just 4,718 in 2018. In the meanwhile, there are now 78,014 branches instead of the previous 43,790. On the one hand, less competition, which is harmful for consumers, results from fewer banks. However, major banks may pass through cheaper expenses to their clients since they have lesser overhead. Additionally, you may create an online account with a major bank from anywhere in the world. According to the amount of assets they possess, the top 10 banks in the United States are listed below.
1. JPMorgan-Chase
JPMorgan-Chase is at the top of the list with $3.19 trillion in assets. It is now both one of the biggest banks in the world and the biggest bank in the nation. The corporation was formed in 2000 as a consequence of the merger of Chase Manhattan Corporation and J.P. Morgan & Company. Although the bank offers retail and commercial banking services under the name Chase, J.P. Morgan is utilized for investment banking and private wealth management.
The corporation and the original J.P. Morgan Bank were both founded by the 19th-century financial tycoon John Pierpont Morgan. Aaron Burr, a famed duelist and early American statesman, was one of the minds behind Chase Manhattan. CEO Jamie Dimon now oversees the bank.
2. Bank of America
Bank of America is ranked second with consolidated assets of $2.35 trillion. One of the largest financial centers in the nation is Charlotte, North Carolina, home to its headquarters. This organization, which owns Merrill Lynch, a titan in wealth management, is really the largest wealth management firm in the world even if it is not the largest bank.
While Chase has more than 5,000 locations nationwide, Bank of America isn’t far behind.
It began as a modest organization named the Bank of Italy that provided services to immigrants in San Francisco around the turn of the 20th century. With the purchase of a share in Chinese Construction Bank, which it ultimately sold off, Bank of America briefly entered the Chinese financial market.
3. Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo is the third-largest bank in the US with $1.78 trillion in assets after merging with Norwest Corporation in 1998 and purchasing Wachovia National Bank in 2008. However, according to Statista, it has the most branches, with 5,039 total. The headquarters of the financial services provider are in San Francisco.
The oldest continually functioning bank charter in the country is held by Wells Fargo. It was initially given to the First National Bank of Philadelphia and acquired through Wachovia. After information regarding a corporate culture where workers were under pressure to open 2 million bank accounts without clients’ consent surfaced in 2016, the bank started to garner some recognition. CEO Tim Sloan resigned in 2019 following a slew of allegations involving unlawful house foreclosures and contraventions of consumer protection legislation.
4. Citibank/Citigroup
With $1.69 trillion, Citibank (originally the City Bank of New York) comes in second. During the 19th century, when both banks were solely regional, Citibank was viewed as an East Coast equal to Wells Fargo since it was a pioneer of both the credit card business and automated teller machines. In 1914, when it expanded to Argentina, Citibank became the first American bank to establish a branch abroad. The bank now operates close to 1,000 branches in the United States and a few hundred elsewhere in the world.
5. U.S. Bank/U.S. Bancorp
U.S. Bank, a division of U.S. Bancorp, ranks fifth on the list and has consolidated assets worth more than $547 billion. The bank, which has its headquarters in Minneapolis, primarily serves the Midwest and West. 2,352 domestic branches exist.
Old National Bank, Heritage Bank, People’s National Bank, Northwestern Commercial Bank, Heart Federal Savings and Loan, and West One Bancorp are just a few of the notable regional banks that have been merged or acquired to create the present bank. First Bank System bought and rebranded what is now known as U.S. Bancorp in 1997, but in 2000 Firstar Corporation took over ownership of the company. Since 1933, it has been against the law for banks to include the word “United States” in their names; the newly combined bank retained the name U.S. Bancorp. Many other institutions, including Pacific Century Bank, Bay View Bank, Vail Banks, Downey Savings & Loan, and Charter One Bank, have subsequently been added to its collection.
6. Truist Bank
Truist Bank is the most recent addition to this list of banks. In actuality, Truist was just founded in September of this year. It was created by the union of SunTrust and BB&T, two other big banks (Branch Banking and Trust Company). The bank now has total assets of $510 billion.
The bank has a variety of arms that deal with insurance, investment, wealth management, and other things, thus its interests are fairly diverse. Due to the fact that it presently runs 2,590 offices, it also boasts one of the largest networks of branch sites.
7. PNC
PNC, a local banking company founded in Pittsburgh, mostly serves the East Coast. The bank has $453 billion in total assets and 2,202 locations in a few eastern states and Washington, D.C.
PNC is an abbreviation that stands for both Pittsburgh National Corporation and Providence National Corporation, two separate banks. Due to the similarity of their acronyms, the two Pennsylvania banks that combined to create the foundation of the current business opted to utilize merely the acronym. Among traditional banks, PNC was a pioneer in the use of “virtual wallet” services.
8. TD Bank
TD Bank, which combines many banks, has assets of $415 trillion. It has variously been known as Portland Savings Bank, Banknorth, and presently TD Bank over the years. It bought Commerce Bank in 2008 and afterwards amalgamated with TD Banknorth in Canada.
Toronto-Dominion is what the TD in TD Bank truly stands for. Despite having a Canadian parent corporation, the American division has 1,156 locations nationwide and its headquarters are in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
9. Bank of New York Mellon
Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, was a co-founder of the Bank of New York in 1784. The consequence of the union of that company with T. Mellon and Sons, a Pittsburgh-based organization that provided financing for the steel and petroleum sectors, is Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon). BNY Mellon is the oldest financial organization in the nation because to its lengthy history. Its assets reach $384 trillion, and it has branches in 29 American cities, Washington, D.C., and three other nations (Dubai, Grand Cayman and England). Services for investment management are offered by its subsidiary BNY Mellon Wealth Management.
10. Capital One
In addition to offering checking and savings accounts, Capital One also offers credit cards, vehicle loans, and mortgages. Capital One began to seriously enter the banking industry in 2005 after initially focusing solely on credit cards. Capital One received criticism at the beginning of 2014 for altering its customer terms of service to permit the bank to contact consumers anyway it saw fit, including purposefully misleading them with phony caller IDs. Despite having one among the fewest branch networks on our list, Capital One currently has assets worth more than $369 billion.