Wells Fargo's health care conference in Boston drew more than 300 companies and 850 investors this year, which Charlie Scharf said is almost double last year's investor turnout.
Bank chief executives usually decline to take a side on tariffs, on the Federal Reserve and on pending crypto legislation in the same 14 minutes. Scharf took a position on all three: he is not against the idea of tariffs, he finds the new Fed chairman's approach refreshing, and he says the crypto bill in front of the Senate would make the banking system unsafe as written.
"There's a huge amount of change going on in the world broadly, and people are very active in the markets and thinking about if they can get deals done in this administration, now is the time to get them done."
Scharf runs Wells Fargo, which has hosted this conference for 21 years, and is spending the freedom won when the Federal Reserve lifted the asset cap on the bank to build out an investment bank that he says has nearly doubled its US market share.
I listened to the full interview so you can skip it.
Here are the 11 takeaways that matter.
👤 Guest: Charlie Scharf, Chief Executive Officer of Wells Fargo
🎙️ Host: Sara Eisen, CNBC Anchor, interviewing from Wells Fargo's health care conference in Boston
📰 Published: 9 September 2026 on CNBC
🔴 CNBC | ⏱️ 14 min
Key Takeaways
The deal window is set by the administration, not by the cycle
Capital is available, and he said the only thing that closes the window is a change in market liquidity or spreads
Wells Fargo's US investment-bank market share has gone from 2.5% to 4.3%
Number six in announced M&A, from number 14 a couple of years ago
The lower-income consumer has stopped stabilizing and started growing alongside the affluent one
Delinquencies are improving from levels he already calls very healthy
He is not against the idea of tariffs, and says customers argue about the playing field rather than the disruption
The crypto market-structure bill as written would pull deposits out of small banks
Fix that and the anti-money-laundering gap, he said, and the banks support the bill
Small banks, not large ones, are the most unhappy with the bill's current wording
He wants the Fed left with the flexibility to decide meeting by meeting and explain itself afterwards
Excitement about AI and serious worry about it are the same answer from him, as they were for new drugs
1. 850 Investors In Boston
The interview was recorded at Wells Fargo's annual health care conference, in its 21st year, and Eisen opened on health care M&A as a story for Wall Street and for the bank.
Scharf gave the scale in his own numbers: "You know, we have over 300 companies, 850 investors, which is almost double what we had last year."
He said the draw is the pairing of the two groups, with the bank convening companies and investors to talk through the changes in the industry
On the sector itself: "I mean, health care, it's dynamic. There's a huge amount going on. You know, we're in the middle of a lot of it."
Asked directly about deal making in health care, he said it is happening, that capital is available, and that the industry is going through a large amount of change
His description of what the conference floor actually looks like: "And so you've got a lot of people wandering around having conversations about what's next, what makes sense. And so I would expect more of that to continue."
2. The Dealmaking Window
Eisen widened the question to the whole deal wave and asked how sustainable it is.
His answer tied the wave to the calendar of the administration rather than to valuations: "There's a huge amount of change going on in the world broadly, and people are very active in the markets and thinking about if they can get deals done in this administration, now is the time to get them done."
The condition he attached to it is a financing condition, not a political one: "So unless something happens in the markets to change liquidity or change spreads, I would assume that's going to continue."
Spreads here are the extra yield a borrower pays over government debt; wider spreads make the debt behind a deal more expensive and are what tends to stop an acquisition wave
3. Taking Investment Bank Share
Eisen said growing the investment bank has been a priority for Scharf and asked how much further it has to run.
"Our market share in the investment bank in the US is 4.3%, up from 2.5% just a couple of years ago," he said, and put the bank's ranking at "We're number six in announced M&A, I think, up from 14 a couple of years ago."
He framed the position as early rather than finished: "Listen, I think we're in the beginning of what we view as what our opportunity is, but we've made great progress."
Eisen named the competition — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan — and Scharf agreed they are strong before listing what he thinks Wells Fargo brings that a pure advisory firm does not: a balance sheet, relationships, lending and cash management
On the incumbency he is trying to convert: "We've been banking a lot of these customers for decades and decades, and they like doing business with us, and we intend to do more with them."
4. Growth Without Cheap Loans
Eisen put the investor debate to him directly. Lending is a central part of the story now that the asset cap has been lifted, and she said the concerns are around cost and margin — whether the bank has to price loans aggressively to grow the business.
Scharf rejected the premise: "We're not competing on price out there. We're competing on our abilities, our relationship, and that's what's going to drive the higher returns that we see in our future."
His explanation for the margin pressure investors can see is a mix effect from restarting the financing business the cap had forced it to shrink. Those assets, he said, are "high return, but lower margin"
Net interest margin is the spread between what a bank earns on its loans and what it pays for deposits; adding low-margin, high-return assets pulls the percentage down while raising the dollars earned
He said the margin effect is already fading: "That's moderating. That's not going to be a big part of the story going forward."
5. Raising The Return Target
Asked what the most underappreciated part of the earnings story is, Scharf declined the framing and answered with the bank's return target instead.
He said the issue is not underappreciation: "I think, you know our investors want to see results. And so it's up to us to show that across all of our businesses, we're showing real growth."
On the sequence of targets: "Our return on tangible common equity when we started our journey was high single digits. We set a target of 15. We achieved that. We said now 17 to 18, we feel very comfortable that we're going to get there in a reasonable period of time, and then we're going to raise it from there, because the natural mix of our business supports a higher number."
Return on tangible common equity measures profit against the shareholders' money in the bank, excluding goodwill and other intangible assets — the number bank investors use to compare one lender's profitability against another's
What he wants from the next few quarters is consistency across the businesses rather than a single strong one: "And we're starting to see that in every single one of our businesses."
6. The K-Shape Closes Up
Eisen noted that credit quality has been remarkably strong and asked whether anything had changed. Scharf's answer went past credit to the state of the customer base.
"When we think about credit on the consumer side, delinquencies are actually improving from very, very healthy levels already," he said, adding that he does not expect that to run indefinitely: "We don't expect that to continue. It's not going to go on forever."
The change he called most interesting is at the bottom of the income distribution: "Then we saw a period where the affluent were continuing to grow and the lower end was stabilizing. Now they're growing in tandem."
A K-shaped economy is one where higher earners keep spending while lower earners fall behind; his claim is that the lower leg of the K has turned up rather than merely flattened
He kept the level distinction: "So still at a lower level. But you are seeing growth there."
He said the strength is broad based and reads through to small business, commercial banking customers and large corporates
Eisen asked whether that is surprising given inflation and higher gas prices. His answer rested on payrolls: "Listen, I think it comes down to people have jobs and their wages are growing. And as long as those two things exist, yes, we should be concerned about inflation. Inflation is very, very real."
"But when people get their paycheck, they see more money in their paycheck. They have the ability to spend it," he said
Asked whether higher interest rates would squeeze small businesses that borrow, he said probably not: "Probably not smaller businesses, because, you know, they don't borrow long at those rates"
7. Tariffs, Iran And Inflation
Eisen pressed on the inflation comment, and the answer turned into Scharf's defense of the administration's trade policy.
He said the reasons for the current inflation are not surprising and that what matters is acknowledgment of it, at the administration and at the Fed. Tariffs and higher oil prices are both "complicated," and he said the argument that there is a greater good to get through is fair
Eisen asked whether he meant the fight with Iran. Scharf said the reasons for that were absolutely part of it, and added the trade goal: "And creating a fair and level trade environment across the world."
Asked whether he is against the tariffs: "I am not against the idea of the tariffs at all." He allowed that individual measures could be argued over one by one
Eisen interjected that Canada is a live example. Scharf went back to what he says customers tell the bank
His account of those conversations is about competitive access rather than cost: "What they talk about is fair and level playing field. It wasn't a fair and level playing field."
"We want the ability to sell our goods abroad the same way those companies can sell their goods here," he said, describing customers looking past near-term disruption to a better competitive position
8. Warsh And The Fed's Room
Asked whether the Fed should raise rates at next week's meeting, Scharf refused to prejudge it and instead endorsed how the new chairman is communicating.
"I find what chairman Warsh says very refreshing," he said. Eisen noted that he is known as a fan, and that some investors want more guidance about what would cause a rate rise
"I think he is spot on," Scharf said of the chairman's criticism of publishing individual rate projections and having many officials talk about them in public
The dot plot is the Fed's chart of where each policymaker expects rates to go; it is a snapshot of opinion rather than a commitment, which is the ambiguity the criticism is aimed at
He put part of the blame on the media and part on what he called "laziness that exists in parts of the investment community", with attention going to backward-looking or gossipy material rather than the facts
His summary of the chairman's message: "And so his point of do the work, look at the underlying facts."
On what he thinks the Fed needs from the debate: "And I do think the Fed should have the flexibility to make the decisions that they're going to make and explain why they made them."
He said arguing publicly about where rates will be in two, three or four months makes it harder for the Fed to change course in an environment moving this fast
9. The Treasury's Intervention
Eisen raised the Treasury Secretary's move to increase buybacks of government debt, which CNBC was due to cover in the following hour, and referred to her own interview with the Secretary.
Scharf said what he hears from the administration is a view on what drives the risk premium over time, and a willingness to act on that view
A buyback here is the Treasury purchasing its own outstanding bonds, which supports their price and pushes yields down
He said the administration believes it can control inflation and generate growth in a way where the two help rather than hurt each other, and that it is willing to take actions to demonstrate it
Asked whether he has a problem with it: "I don't have a problem with that. And I think, you know, them being clear about how they feel about things through their actions is reasonable."
10. The Clarity Act Objection
The crypto industry's lobby had launched a campaign ahead of a procedural vote on the market-structure bill, saying the big banks are against it. Eisen asked whether Scharf has a problem with the bill.
He said a lobby for crypto lobbying for crypto is not a surprise, then separated the industry's framing from the banks' actual objection, speaking for himself
The objection is to two provisions rather than to the bill: "But there are things about it which, if passed as is, I believe, and I think a lot of the banks in this country believe, including the small banks, which are incredibly important to this country, are that, if passed, will create an environment which is unsafe."
The first is deposits: "Deposits are incredibly important for the banking system. They get recycled into loans, especially for small banks and communities." Eisen identified the mechanism as whether crypto platforms can pay yields or rewards on balances
"And we're fine with rewards, but not pulling deposits out of banking system, especially the small banks," he said, adding: "And they're the ones that are the most unhappy about the way the bill is currently written, not the larger banks."
The second is anti-money-laundering: he said that as the bill is written, "protections don't exist across the crypto industry to provide the kinds of protections that the financial system that's regulated currently provides"
He said the banks want the bill passed once those two things are fixed: "And so you fix those two things. Absolutely. We're supportive of it."
What he says the legislation would buy is clarity about what a regulated institution may do: "We want them to compete on a level playing field, and we want to compete on a level playing field."
11. AI Risk, Not Politics
Eisen closed on the day's AI story, which she described as an Anthropic researcher who had resigned and warned that everyone there thinks AI could kill us, with a chance she put at more than 10%, and asked whether Scharf has existential concerns.
He held both positions at once: "I'm not an expert. I think I'm incredibly excited about AI, and I've got huge concerns about it."
His analogy came from the industry in the room: "And I think this is no different than other critical innovations that have happened, including in the health care space, right?" He said we want people to create new things and to create drugs, and that the dangers get handled alongside that rather than instead of it
"But to the extent that there are dangers there, you should acknowledge them and make sure they're the right protections, but allow the kind of innovation that we need," he said
Referring back to a point Eisen had made about China, he said the country has to be at the forefront, and asked for the risk conversation to be kept out of party politics: "But we should acknowledge that there are risks, not politicize it in terms of, you know, whether it's Republican or Democrat issue"
He grouped the parties to the question as the large technology companies, the large language model providers, and users like his own bank
Bonus Insights
Scharf described the bank's advantage over pure advisory firms as a list rather than a pitch — balance sheet, intelligence, relationships, lending, cash management — and named traditional banks and smaller specialist institutions as the competition alongside the largest firms
Eisen's read of the investor debate on the stock was that the worry is cost and margin rather than volume, which is the question Scharf answered by separating margin percentage from dollars of return
He twice made the same move on policy questions, declining to grade a specific measure while endorsing the direction: on individual tariffs, and on whether the Fed should move next week
Scharf's bottom line is that the customer base is healthier than the polling suggests and the deal market is open while this administration is in place, and that the one thing he wants changed in Washington is a crypto bill he says would drain deposits from small banks unless two provisions are rewritten.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Wells Fargo (Scharf's bank, host of the health care conference the interview was recorded at, and the investment bank he says has gone from 2.5% to 4.3% US market share)
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan (Named by Eisen as the competition in the investment bank; Scharf agreed they are strong and argued Wells Fargo's balance sheet and existing lending relationships are what it competes on)
Anthropic (The AI company whose departing researcher's warning Eisen used to ask Scharf about existential risk)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (H.R. 3633) (The crypto market-structure bill facing a procedural vote; Scharf said it would create an unsafe environment as written, on deposits and on anti-money-laundering protections)
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