Workers are eligible for the one-time cash grants if they earned a salary of less than $75,000 last year, and their total cash compensation was less than $85,000. The payments come amid a unionization push at the San Francisco-based megabank.

Revenue from the fixed-income trading business was little changed from a year earlier, disappointing analysts who had expected an increase.

The San Francisco-based bank warned for months that charge-offs were likely to start rising as some office-related loans went bad. It began to happen in the fourth quarter, which could be an omen for regional banks that have larger concentrations in the office sector.

In 2023, the four giant banks raked in $253 billion in NII , about $80 billion higher than 2021's total. Now, most banks see rate cuts coming, all while they have to pay more on deposits or risk losing customer savings to higher-yielding options. 

The company spent $15.8 billion in the fourth quarter, down 2% from a year earlier, while analysts had estimated an 11% drop. Severance expenses and a special deposit insurance assessment contributed $3 billon to that total.

Executives at America's largest banks are making rosier predictions about the financial health of U.S. households than they were a year ago, when their forecasts proved to be overly pessimistic.

The vote by workers in a New Mexico branch is the first union victory at a megabank in decades, though unionization efforts at another Wells branch took a step back.