Wells Fargo & Company, a financial services company, provides diversified banking, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through four segments: Consumer Banking and Lending; Commercial Banking; Corporate and Investment Banking; and Wealth and Investment Management. The company's financial products and services includes checking and savings accounts, and credit …
Full WFC analysis →
Competitive advantage assessment
Key strengths
Strong Capital PositionCapital position is strong (score 0.94), exceeding regulatory minimums.
Wells Fargo & Company ranks #7 of 19
scored companies in Banks - Diversified by moat score — the top 37%.
The widest moat in the group is Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son (NTB)
at 75/100.
Moat scores for companies ranked near WFC in Banks - Diversified
A deposit franchise is the cheapest and most valuable thing a bank can own.
Lending Advantage
Score 55
· 18% of the moat score
Lending advantage is the ability to originate loans at attractive spreads without buying that volume with looser credit standards.
Capital Strength
Score 82
· 20% of the moat score
Capital is the buffer between loan losses and insolvency, and it is what regulators judge a bank on first.
Cost Discipline
Score 28
· 16% of the moat score
Banking carries high fixed costs in branches, compliance and technology, so what it costs to run the bank relative to what the bank earns is a genuine competitive variable.
Revenue Diversification
Score 58
· 14% of the moat score
A bank earning everything from net interest income is a leveraged bet on the rate cycle.
Risk Management
Score 88
· 10% of the moat score
Risk management is the defense that only reveals itself late.
Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) scores 59 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as moderate. It ranks #7 of 19 scored companies in Banks - Diversified, the top 37%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 31 companies in Banks - Diversified. Its strongest defense is Risk Management (88/100) and its weakest is Cost Discipline (28/100).
How does Wells Fargo & Company compare with other Banks - Diversified companies?
Wells Fargo & Company ranks #7 of 19 scored companies in Banks - Diversified by moat score. The widest moat in Banks - Diversified is Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son (NTB) at 75/100. The companies ranked closest are Royal Bank Of Canada (RY) at 59 just above it and Canadian Imperial Bank of Comme (CM) at 58 just below it.
How is the moat score calculated?
Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Bank Specialized in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 31 companies in Banks - Diversified. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.
Why is Wells Fargo & Company scored with the Bank Specialized template?
A bank does not sell a product at a margin. It funds itself, lends at a spread, and books profits that remain an estimate until the loans are actually repaid. That makes the usual margin-and-return questions misleading, so the Bank template scores what really determines a bank's durability: where its funding comes from, what it lends against, how much capital stands behind it, and whether it has been pricing risk honestly.
Which competitive defenses are measured for Wells Fargo & Company?
The Bank Specialized template measures 6 defenses, and WFC scores: Deposit Franchise (44), Lending Advantage (55), Capital Strength (82), Cost Discipline (28), Revenue Diversification (58), Risk Management (88). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.
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