May 29, 2026
8 min read
Charlie Scharf discusses Wells Fargo’s growth and consumer strength with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo
While at the 2026 Reagan National Economic Forum, Wells Fargo Chairman & CEO Charlie Scharf joined Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo for an interview on Wells Fargo’s continued growth and the continued strength of the consumer.
Transcript
Maria Bartiromo: Now, for this Fox Business exclusive, is the chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo. Charlie Scharf is with us, who is going to be on stage this morning, and, Charlie, it is great to have you before your remarks.
Charlie Scharf: It’s great to be here. Thanks.
Maria Bartiromo: Thanks so much for being here. And you’ve been running, you’ve been the Chairman and CEO of Wells Fargo since late 2019. But when you came into the company, you, of course, had to deal with lots of regulatory issues. You spent a lot of time doing that. The Federal Reserve last year lifted the $2 trillion 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?
Charlie Scharf: Yeah, well, it’s remarkable. I mean, we’re 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 that 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. And it’s incredibly exciting, because those are the types of things that, you know, 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 able to be in a position to do that is what motivates people to come into work every day and help others.
Maria Bartiromo: That is a big deal, Charlie. Congratulations on that. Does this mean you are now returning to focusing on increasing deposits?
Charlie Scharf: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, when we had the asset cap put in, I’m not sure people contemplated that that was also 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.
Now we’re in a position to go to our customers and say, ‘We’re here for you. We want to do more for you,’ and they’ve been wonderful. And 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 weren’t able to do, as I said, 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.
Maria Bartiromo: 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?
Charlie Scharf: You know, the consumer is remarkable. I mean, when you just look at the facts and data, it just continues to say that consumers are willing to spend. And we look at all pieces, we look at consumer spend, we look at delinquencies on lending, and we look at savings rates. And all three continue to remain very strong. You look at credit card and debit card spend, up 8% to 10% on a year-over-year basis, even 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, 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 listen, 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.
“Now we're in a position to go to our customers and say, we're here for you. We want to do more for you, and they've been wonderful.”
Maria Bartiromo: 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?
Charlie Scharf: Listen, it’s employment, and it’s wages. Uh, 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 the reality is, employment is still extremely strong, and at least the data that we see, we look at 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.
Maria Bartiromo: And this has enabled you, this performance and the lifting of the cap, has enabled you to invest in the business again, like the credit card business.
Charlie Scharf: Yeah, I mean, you know, we’re looking at it and saying, ‘How can we do more?’ I mean, that’s what we’re here for. So whether it’s the lifting of the asset cap, the changes in capital rules, regulation. You know, 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 to $55 billion. 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. And 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. 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.
Maria Bartiromo: Which has also given you an allowance to get rid of noncore 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’s that impact Wells?
Charlie Scharf: One of the things I’ve learned, as I’ve done different jobs in my career, is fresh looks are always good things. And so, Kevin, incredibly bright, has incredible experience, both in the private sector and at the Fed, which is a huge plus. And so, to come in and be able to take a fresh look at policies, whether it’s the size of the balance sheet, whether it’s a trajectory of interest rates, different analyses to do, that’s a good thing. And so, I actually think it’s going to be just a huge plus for the conversation within the Fed about how to think about some things a little bit differently.
“These are all things that enable us to do more in our communities for the people that we’re there to serve.”
Maria Bartiromo: 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?
Charlie Scharf: Correct. Correct. Well, you know, it’s area by area. So, we’re a huge lender to companies in this country. We lend as much money in the U.S. 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 market. 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 with some of the largest transactions out there. It is 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, andasking for our fair share, showing up in an incredible way.
Maria Bartiromo: Can you get in on this big deal? SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI IPOs?
Charlie Scharf: 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, I think, in 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, you know, it takes time. But it’s linear progress. We’re not expecting an exponential progress in any of these things. If we do that, it’ll pay off over time.
Maria Bartiromo: Charlie, congratulations. You’ve turned things around. We appreciate you joining us.
Charlie Scharf: Thanks for having me. Thank you so much. Charlie Scharf is the Chairman and CEO at Wells Fargo.
