America’s biggest banks are about to lock in their largest share of the banking industry’s profits in nearly ten years after an explosive run-up.
JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo – the four largest banks in the US – recorded $88 billion in collective profits in the first nine months of the year, the Financial Times reports, using figures from BankRegData.
The banking giants now account for 44% of all the industry’s profits, and when you combine the “Big Four” with US Bank, PNC and Truist – the next three largest banks – the seven institutions are reaping 56% of all the profits in the field, up from 48% in 2023.
PNC bank didn’t respond to FT’s requests for comments while the other six banks declined to comment altogether.
Says Oppenheimer banking analyst Chris Kotowski,
“Once you get much below the biggest banks, then it does become really hard to make the necessary investments and have the same name recognition…
We’re a very mobile society, especially since Covid. Lots of people that move from New York to Florida for example, do you really need to have a different bank in Florida than you do in New York?”
The consolidation of power by the biggest US banks highlights the struggle of smaller institutions to deal with regulation, volatile interest rates and the ability of larger banks to spread their presence digitally across the country.
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