Bank of America earns money in two main ways. First, it collects more interest on loans than it pays out on deposits, pocketing the difference. Second, it charges fees every time someone uses a credit card, trades a stock, gets help buying a company, or parks money with a wealth manager. The bank serves roughly 69 million consumer and small business clients through about 3,600 branches, 15,000 ATMs, and digital platforms with approximately 49 million active users. It also serves large corporations, governments, and investors through its Global Banking and Global Markets divisions. All four of these divisions feed money into the same machine, and the diagram below traces where that money flows.
Five years of data tell a story of steady growth with one important detour. Revenue climbed from $89.1 billion in 2021 to $113.1 billion in 2025, a gain of $24 billion over four years. Net income reached $30.5 billion in 2025, up from $27.0 billion the year before. Earnings per diluted share rose from $3.19 in 2024 to $3.81 in 2025. The bank's total assets grew to $3.4 trillion by the end of 2025, and total deposits reached $2.0 trillion.
The revenue growth rests on two pillars that moved together in 2025. Net interest income, the money earned from lending minus the cost of deposits, rose $4.0 billion to $60.1 billion. Noninterest income, which includes card fees, service charges, investment and brokerage services, and investment banking fees, rose $3.2 billion to $53.0 billion. Within noninterest income, investment and brokerage services alone reached $19.956 billion, driven by higher asset management fees and more active clients. Expenses also rose, with total noninterest expense climbing to $69.7 billion, largely due to higher compensation, technology spending, and marketing costs. Compensation and benefits alone came to $42.3 billion.
The operating cash flow numbers in the five-year data swing dramatically from year to year, which is normal for a bank of this size. Banks move enormous sums through trading desks, securities portfolios, and lending books every quarter. What matters more for a bank is its capital strength, not its cash flow in the way a factory would report it. On that measure, the bank reported a Common Equity Tier 1 capital ratio of 11.4 percent at the end of 2025. Regulators require a minimum, and this number sits above that floor.
Net charge-offs, which are loans the bank has given up trying to collect, fell from $6.0 billion in 2024 to $5.6 billion in 2025. As a share of average loans, that dropped from 0.57 percent to 0.50 percent. The allowance for loan and lease losses held at $13.2 billion. These numbers suggest the loan book was in slightly better shape at the end of 2025 than a year earlier.
The risks the bank discloses in its filings are specific and worth naming directly. A drop in U.S. home prices would hit the large portfolio of home loans and home equity lines hard, because falling values push more borrowers underwater and raise defaults. If the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates significantly, net interest income shrinks because the bank earns less on its loans. A credit rating downgrade from agencies like Moody's or S&P would make borrowing more expensive and force the bank to post extra collateral on derivatives contracts. And because Bank of America has large exposures to other financial institutions including broker-dealers, hedge funds, and investment banks, a failure at one large firm could ripple through and create losses here too.
There is also a structural limit on growth that comes from the bank's own size. Federal law bars Bank of America from acquiring any other bank if doing so would push its share of total U.S. insured deposits above 10 percent. As of June 30, 2025, the bank already held more than 10 percent of those deposits. That means the path to future growth runs through organic means, not large acquisitions.
The wealth management side of the business also matters more than it used to. The Global Wealth and Investment Management division reported client balances of $4.8 trillion. Investment and brokerage services fees reached $19.956 billion in 2025, up from $17.766 billion in 2024. This part of the business grows when markets rise and client assets grow in value, but it shrinks when markets fall.