Wells Fargo, the banking group expanded last year through its purchase of rival Wachovia, said its wealth, retirement and brokerage division logged net income of $244 million in the three months to 30 September, down from $363 million in the previous quarter.

Revenues at this segment of the US-listed bank were $2.97 billion, compared with $2.99 billion in the previous three months, Wells Fargo said in a statement yesterday.

Average core deposits rose to $116.4 billion from $113.5 billion, the firm said.

In the retail brokerage side of this segment, client assets rose by 8 per cent to $1.1 trillion from the previous quarter, while managed account assets rose by $23 billion, or 14 per cent, including net inflows of $8 billion.. Brokerage transactional revenue rose by 2 per cent on the previous quarter. Trust assets stood at $119 billion at the end of September, a rise of 7 per cent.

For the banking group as a whole, Wells Fargo reported net income of $3.2 billion, up 98 per cent from last year. Diluted earnings per common share were $0.56, up 14 per cent from last year.

It said results were driven by record $10.8 billion pre-tax, pre-provision profit.

Wells Fargo had a Tier 1 capital ratio of 14.7 per cent at the end of the quarter.

In an update on progress of the Wachovia acquisition of last year, Wells Fargo said the estimated cumulative merger expenses have been reduced to approximately $5.5 billion from $7.9 billion. It is “on track” to achieve $5.0 billion annual run-rate cost savings by completion of integration in 2011, it added.