Economics Finance

The biggest 7 U.S. commercial banks control 50% of consolidated assets

juan.torres2012

21st century concentration of banking

Over the last 20 years, the 7 biggest U.S. commercial banks (here referred to as the “Big 7”):

  • Chase
  • Bank of America
  • Citibank
  • Wells Fargo
  • US Bank
  • Truist Bank
  • PNC

have acquired 50% of all consolidated assets among all U.S. large commercial banks.1 The animated pie chart above might give the illusion that from 2003-2009 the banks reached their peak equilibrium of dominance of consolidated assets at around 50%. However, the Big 7 banks continued to increase the amount of consolidated assets after this period:2

If we only take into account the biggest four commercial banks (Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo, here referred to as the Big 4),the rate at which they accumulate consolidated assets is of $21.07 billion per quarter from 2003-2023.3 In fact, it’s just the Big 4 that control 42.15% of consolidated assets among the large commercial banks as of the first quarter of 2023: 4

The main reason that the Big 7 have a relative period of “stable” dominance of 50% over all consolidated assets from large commercial banks from 2010-2023 is because most large commercial banks were also able to consolidate more assets during this time period:5

Note: The blue line represents the consolidated assets of all large commercial banks, while the blue line represents the consolidated assets of the Big 7 banks.

Giga Banks

BlackRock, Vanguard, Fidelity and State Street are the banks that control the Big 4:

Ownership of Giga-Banks on the Big 4 Banks
Big 4 BanksVanguardBlackRockState StreetFidelitySum per Big 4 Banks
Chase17.07%6.62%4.34%2.81%30.84%
Bank of America14.15%5.98%3.61%3.58%27.32%
CitiBank17.26%8.38%4.31%1.11%31.06%
Wells Fargo32.77%14.75%8.34%12.01%67.87%
Giga-banks control closely to 1/3 of the the shares of the Big 4, with Giga-Banks having 2/3 of Wells Fargo’s shares.

In fact, these giga-banks are, arguably, the real economic centers of the American economic system. As such, to have a more accurate measurement of the concentration of banking (and the concentration and combination of production), its necessary to analyze these giga-banks, their hold on shares on other banks, industries, their assets under management. However, the quantification of the consolidated assets of large commercial banks like the Big 4 is still a good measurement of concentration of banking.

  1. The Federal Reserve defines large commercial banks as those with $300 million or more in consolidated assets. Link.
  2. Note that Chase and Bank of America increased their consolidated assets at a faster rate during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  3. Juancho.”Concentration of Banking as a Property of Monopoly Capitalism: The big 7 U.S. commercial banks control 50% of consolidated assets”. Sept. 2023. Github. Link to Big 7 model and Big 4 model
  4. For the linear model/function, “B” stands for billions of dollars in consolidate assets
  5. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Large Commercial Banks. Link.