America's Biggest Banks: JPMorgan, Wells Fargo Keep Growing While BofA, Citi Shrink

Just how big are the nation's biggest banks? Well, the top four alone manage roughly $8 trillion in assets.

At the top of the list sits JPMorgan Chase with a whopping $2.46 trillion in assets followed by Bank of America with $2.12 trillion. The two banks are the only ones with assets exceeding $2 trillion.

Citigroup , the third largest bank by assets, isn't too far behind with $1.89 trillion and San Francisco-based Wells Fargo is fourth with $1.48 trillion.

From there the 5th largest bank's assets, Bank of New York Mellon , drop off dramatically to $371 billion.

The ranking comes from SNL Financial which compiles the data each quarter.

There's hasn't been much change at the top of the ranking since 2011 when JPM claimed the #1 spot from BofA.

Ever since, JPM has held a steady lead over the rest of the nation's banks--a lead that keeps getting bigger. Just a year ago in the third quarter 2012, JPM's assets stood at $2.32 trillion; they've since increased 6%.

It will be interesting to see how JPM's assets evolve over the next 12 months. 2013 wasn't JPM's best. CEO Jamie Dimon reported the bank's first quarterly loss under his watch, it paid $13 billion to settle a big case with the Department of Justice and paid out billions in other suits as well. It was also the first time the bank made a big announcement recently about shutting down a line of business; in September JPM announced it would no longer accept applications for student loans.

Wells Fargo, though #4, has also been steadily growing its asset base at a rate even higher than JPM. Over the last 12 months, Wells, lead by CEO John Stumpf, has seen its total assets jump 8% from $1.37 trillion in the third quarter of 2012. That's the biggest increase among the big four banks.

Much of Wells' growth is due to some key loan purchases the bank has been making overseas. The bank has picked up several loan portfolios on the cheap from banks in Europe as the market there has been struggling and institutions there look to off-load assets.

Wells CFO Tim Sloan spoke about the bank's overall loan growth at a conference last week and noted the foreign loans. "Foreign loans grew $6.9 billion or 17%, which included $4 billion from the UK CRE acquisition we completed in the third quarter, as well as growth in our trade finance business," he said.

Meanwhile both Citi and Bank of America have seen their assets drop over the last few years. Just over the last 12 months both banks shed assets by about 2%.

Both bank have been actively selling non-core assets since the peak of the crisis in order to meet both regulator and shareholder demands.

Back in early 2009, BofA's assets were $2.32 trillion, or 8.4% more than where they stand today.

SNL notes that Citi's assets will decline even further by approximately $3.91 billion from the planned sale of its Brazilian credit card and consumer finance business.

There was only one new bank on the most recent list from SNL. Santa Clara, Calif.-based SVB Financial Group was the lone new entry coming in at #50 with $23.7 billion in assets.

SNL's rankings include banks and thrifts operating in the U.S. with a deposits-to-assets ratio of at least 25%. That means big firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley don't make the cut since they don't hold significant deposits.