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The pay of Wall Street bank bosses soared last year as six of them took home more than $250mn combined, potentially further widening the gap with average bank workers.
The heads of the largest US banks by assets — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley — all received $40mn or more in annual pay, according to recent regulatory filings. BofA chief Brian Moynihan’s $41mn pay award for 2025 was disclosed in a regulatory filing by the bank late on Friday.
The combined average pay increases for the six chiefs represented a 22 per cent increase over the prior year. With their average remuneration already standing at 298 times that of their median bank employees in 2024, according to regulatory filings, the robust raises stand to further widen the gap with the rank-and-file at a time when inflation and modest wage gains are making affordability issues a top concern across the economy.
Still, the CEOs presided over average stock price gains of 42 per cent last year — perhaps the most closely watched measure of executive performance.
“It’s bull market banking with bull market results and bull market pay for the CEOs,” said Wells Fargo banking analyst Mike Mayo. “Directionally, it’s correct.”
Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon was the highest paid CEO with a $47mn total package that included a $10.1mn cash bonus, $31.5mn in stock and $3.4mn in carried interest from the funds the bank manages. Goldman added carried interest to Solomon’s pay a year ago in order to reflect the pay framework of large asset managers to retain top talent.
Moynihan’s pay award represented a 17 per cent jump over the previous year, the bank’s regulatory filing said. The disclosure came a day after Citi said its chief executive Jane Fraser had been paid $42mn for the same period, nearly a quarter more than the previous year. She also received a $25mn retention bonus in October.
Fraser’s pay was $1mn shy of the $43mn awarded to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, while Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick received $45mn in the same period.
The market capitalisation of US banks surged in the past year as Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda and a revival in investment banking helped boost their earnings. Banks have benefited from the rollback of several rules that have encumbered the sector since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
Last year, US regulators made proposals to allow higher leverage for the largest banks, overhauled annual banking stress tests used to determine capital requirements and rescinded lending guidance for riskier loans.
Mayo said the higher pay packages were also a sign of confidence in bank performance in the next few years, which he expects will bring record revenue for traditional banking and capital markets activity.
In addition to market conditions and the regulatory easing, individual banks such as Wells Fargo and Citi, which have traditionally lagged behind their peers on executive pay and performance, were also lifted as they hit separate milestones.
Citi was the best-performing big Wall Street bank stock in 2025, as the lender — which has trailed peers since the financial crisis — nears the completion of a high-stakes restructuring. The board cited Fraser’s “bold choices she has made to position the firm for further growth” and said it has completed more than 80 per cent of its transformation. The bank hit its highest share price since the financial crisis in July.
Wells Fargo’s Charlie Scharf led the California-headquartered bank through the removal of a $2tn asset cap imposed by regulators in June. The punitive cap had been imposed by regulators after its “fake accounts” scandal, in which Wells opened accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge.
Fraser and Scharf received the title of chair in 2025, in addition to their existing chief executive roles, while Fraser was granted a $25mn retention bonus in October. Combining the CEO and chair roles is a commonplace model that was already favoured by JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
Additional reporting by Louis Ashworth in New York