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Wall Street bank bosses’ pay soared last year as six of them took home a combined more than $250 million, potentially widening the gap with average bank workers.
The largest U.S. banks by assets — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley — all received $40 million or more in annual pay, according to recent regulatory filings. BofA chief Brian Moynihan’s $41 million pay award for 2025 was disclosed in a regulatory filing by the bank late Friday.
The combined average salary increase for the six chiefs represents a 22 percent increase over the previous year. According to regulatory filings, their average remuneration in 2024 is already 298 times higher than that of average bank employees At a time when inflation and modest wage increases are making affordability issues the top concern in the economy, the strong increase stands to further widen the gap with the rank-and-file.
Still, CEOs presided over an average share price increase of 42 percent last year – perhaps the most closely watched measure of executive performance.
“This is bull market banking with bull market results and bull market pay for CEOs,” said Mike Mayo, banking analyst at Wells Fargo. “Apparently, that’s right.”
David Solomon of Goldman Sachs was the highest-paid CEO with a total package of $47 million, which included a $10.1 million cash bonus, $31.5 million in stock, and $3.4 million in interest from funds managed by the bank. Goldman added interest to Solomon’s pay a year ago to reflect pay structures at larger asset managers looking to retain top talent.
Moynihan’s pay award represents a 17 percent increase from last year, the bank’s regulatory filing said. The disclosure came a day after Citi said its chief executive Jane Fraser was paid $42 million for the same period, almost a quarter more than the previous year. He also received a retention bonus of $25 million in October.
Fraser’s pay was $1 million less than the $43 million paid to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, while Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick received $45 million during the same period.
The market capitalization of US banks rose last year as Donald Trump’s deregulation agenda and a revival in investment banking helped boost their earnings. Banks have benefited from the rollback of many of the regulations that have put pressure on the sector since the 2008 financial crisis.
Last year, U.S. regulators proposed allowing higher leverage for the largest banks, reforming the annual banking stress tests used to determine capital requirements and scrapping lending guidance for riskier loans.
Mayo said the higher pay package is a sign of confidence in the bank’s performance over the next few years, which he expects will bring record revenues for traditional banking and capital markets activity.
In addition to market conditions and regulatory easing, individual banks like Wells Fargo and Citi, which have traditionally lagged their peers in terms of executive pay and performance, also outperformed as they achieved individual milestones.
Citi was the best-performing large Wall Street bank stock in 2025, as the lender – which has lagged peers since the financial crisis – nears completion of a high-stakes restructuring. The board cited Fraser’s “bold choices he has made to position the firm for further growth” and said it had completed more than 80 percent of its transformation. The bank reached 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 limit was imposed by regulators following his “fake accounts” scandal, in which Wells opened accounts in customers’ names without their knowledge.
Fraser and Scharff get the title of chairman in 2025, in addition to their existing chief executive roles, while Fraser was given a $25mn retention bonus in October. Combining the roles of CEO and Chairman is a common model already adopted by the likes of JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
Additional reporting by Louis Ashworth in New York
