Wells Fargo Asset Cap Is Now One of the Costliest Bank Penalties

Hitting banks with multibillion-dollar fines grabs headlines, but a Federal Reserve cap on Wells Fargo & Co.’s assets is becoming the industry’s true terror.

The wonky sanction devised by the Fed in early 2018 to force Wells Fargo to address a series of scandals is turning into one of the costliest punishments ever levied by a single regulator. By one method of estimating, Wells Fargo has missed out on roughly $4 billion in profits -- and counting -- since the cap was imposed, and it’s unclear when the Fed will lift it.

That figure calculated by Bloomberg is based ...