San Francisco’s finance sector is long past the glory days of “Wall Street West,” when it was the dominant industry in a rising metropolis built from the gold rush, but the city’s beleaguered downtown has seen a recent boost in banks investing in new branches and hiring advisors to cater to the new generation of artificial intelligence riches.
“The Bay Area is arguably the most strategically important wealth market in the world right now,” said Liz Bryant, Citi’s region head of personal banking, mortgage and business banking. “We wanted to make sure we’re positioned to be able to serve the emergent wealth.”
Citibank plans to double its San Francisco wealth advisors as part of a national expansion. It recently opened a new flagship branch at One California St., and another new branch is planned in Menlo Park next year.
JPMorganChase, the nation’s largest bank, is hiring 50 Bay Area business bankers in the next five years, issuing millions of dollars in local grants and funding a waterfront housing project near the Chase Center arena, where it already has naming rights.
San Francisco’s biggest hometown bank, Wells Fargo, has shrunk its workforce for five years in a row, including 27 local layoffs this year, and the bank sold its longtime Financial District headquarters building and moved its designation to a Market Street skyscraper. CEO Charlie Scharf told the San Francisco Business Times in March that the city remains “extremely important to us” and will continue to be the bank’s headquarters. Still, Wells Fargo has more workers in Charlotte than in the Bay Area.
San Francisco “shifted away from being a headquarters center for banks,” said Ted Egan, the city’s economist. “It’s a supporting industry to tech.”
In 1990, San Francisco had around 80,000 financial services jobs. Now it’s down to around 50,000, according to state data.
Increasingly, some companies are blurring the lines between tech and finance. “Fintech” startups like Chime, Brex and Coinbase have grown in San Francisco or returned after moving out during the pandemic. There’s also industry behemoth Visa, which opened a new office hub in Mission Rock in 2024.
“AI has different financing needs than the jobs of 10 years ago,” Egan said. “That’s not bringing tens of thousands of jobs.”
Bryant of Citibank sees a major opportunity in engaging those newly minted AI wealthy beneficiaries, particularly those looking at major initial public offerings and wondering how to invest and preserve their wealth.
“People are seeking advice,” Bryant said. “With our value proposition, with this ever growing gap between wealth creation and financial education and advice … we like what we can offer.”
For more information see Ronald Li “The Bay Area may be the world’s hottest wealth market. Banks are racing to cash in” San Francisco Chronicle, September 30, 2026.