Reuters/ John Adkisson
Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf.
The San Francisco-based bank reported diluted earnings per share of $1.03 on revenue of $21.6 billion.
Analysts had been expecting adjusting earnings per share of $1.02 on revenue of $21.84 billion.
"Full year and fourth quarter 2015 results demonstrated the benefit of our diversified business model as we again generated strong financial results, maintained our risk discipline and continued to invest across the company for future growth," CEO John Stumpf said in a statement.
"We remained focused on the building blocks of long-term shareholder value, with continued growth in loans, deposits, and capital."
Wells Fargo's shares, which fell about 1% in 2015, were down 2.9% in premarket trading Friday.
Mortgage-banking revenue rose 9.6% to $1.66 billion, the first rise in three quarters.
But provisions for credit losses jumped 71.3% to $831 million in the period compared with a year earlier.
The bank's total loans grew 6.3% in the quarter, with the acquisition of General Electric's commercial lending and leasing assets alone adding about $32 billion to the bank's portfolio.
Net interest income, a measure of the interest received from loans after paying for funding and accounting for potential loan losses, rose 0.58% to $10.76 billion.
In the same quarter last year, Wells reported diluted earnings per share of $1.00 on revenue of $20.7 billion.
In the third quarter, the firm beat expectations, reporting diluted earnings per share of $1.05 ($1.04 expected) on revenue of $21.9 billion ($21.8 billion expected).
JPMorgan reported fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday that were a big beat and set a high bar for the rest of Wall Street.
Citigroup reported fourth-quarter earnings on Friday that beat on the top and bottom lines, while Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs will report next week.