Top 50 Banks By Assets/Deposits Highlight Too Big Fail Risks All Over Again (SCHW, ETFC, JPM, BAC, WFC, C)

SNL Financial has released its list of largest banks by assets and deposits.  The list is as you might expect with the large money center banks being ranked, but where some of the surprises come into play is in the new components including so many of the online brokerage firms being counted now with much higher combined assets on the list like The Charles Schwab Corp oration (NYSE: SCHW) at #19 and E*TRADE Financial Corporation (NASDAQ: ETFC) at #33.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) has held its lead over Bank of America Corporation with $2.31 trillion in assets versus $2.18 trillion. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C) also held its wide lead over Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC) with assets of $1.94 trillion versus $1.33 trillion.  What is interesting about that third and fourth place is that Wells Fargo actually leads in deposits against Citigroup with deposits of $930.27 billion versus $906 billion.

The disparity here is huge from those banks ranked from #21 to #50 as none of those even have $100 billion in assets nor in deposits.  In fact, if 20 of these 30 bottom ranked banks (21-50) merged into one giant bank the deposits and assets would still not equal one of the top four money-center banks.

If you wonder why the calls for a break-up of the big banks has grown and grown, the size differential here says it all.  It is harder and harder to argue that biggest banks are not too big.

The full list is below in the chart from SNL Financial and the SNL analysis of the movers is here.

JON C. OGG