The JPMorgan Chase CEO also sounded off on regulatory requirements, expressing optimism that capital rules will be scaled back.

Regulators' decision to lift a seven-year-old cap on the size of the megabank's balance sheet will produce benefits over the long haul, but it won't result in any sudden gains, according to CFO Michael Santomassimo.

The San Francisco-based bank was long hamstrung by a regulatory order that kept it under $1.95 trillion of assets. Now Wells can hit the gas on business lines it had kept idle.

The transaction comes as the megabank is determined to simplify its operating model and shed units that have slower growth prospects or aren't core to its business.

The megabank, which has spent years trying to improve its regulatory compliance, now has just one consent order remaining. And observers expect that Wells' historic asset cap will be lifted soon.

Jim Richards, who served as the bank's head of anti-money-laundering compliance, says the Federal Reserve is wrongfully denying him compensation that was designed to keep him employed at Wells Fargo.

Julian, the bank's onetime audit chief, recently agreed to settle with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a tiny percentage of the $7 million the agency had been seeking. In an interview, he spoke about the expensive legal fight and who bears responsibility for the bank's fake-accounts scandal.

In the megabank's latest sign of progress with regulators, it said that a 7-year-old CFPB order has been terminated.

The chief executives at four of the nation's largest banks weighed in on what evolving trade policies mean for their businesses and the U.S. economy. "I think you have to be a little bit pessimistic here," said Bank of New York Mellon CEO Robin Vince.

The first three months of the year coincide with the start of President Donald Trump's second term in office. Investors are likely to be more interested in banks' outlooks amid swings in tariff policy than the first-quarter results.