Silicon Valley Bank Pays $250,000 Per Employee, Tops in the U.S.

Silicon Valley, better known for hot tech start-ups and venture capital firms, is also home to the highest-paying public bank in the U.S.

SVB Financial Group, based in Santa Clara, Calif., paid its employees on average $250,683 a year in 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Among the nation’s household names, JPMorgan Chase & Co. came in a distant 10th, at $129,310, and Wells Fargo & Co. was 12th, at $127,506. (The salary analysis looked only at commercial banks; investment banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. weren’t counted.)

Bloomberg analyzed 109 public U.S. commercial banks with more than 1,000 employees. Eighty-six had sufficient data.

SVB, the holding company for Silicon Valley Bank, is ...