BofA Officially Biggest Bank in U.S.

Bank of America's (BAC) acquisition of Merrill Lynch secured its position as the biggest bank in the country, according to a report issued late Wednesday.

BofA now tops the list of U.S. banks and thrifts with $2.49 trillion worth of assets, $310.4 billion more than No. 2 competitor JPMorgan Chase (JPM), according to a report by SNL Financial.

JPMorgan still leads Bank of America in terms of deposits, however, holding over $1 trillion in consumer dollars, vs. BofA's $979.1 billion. Without the Merrill acquisition, BofA would have ranked third behind JPMorgan and Citigroup (C), which has $1.94 trillion in assets and $774.2 billion in deposits at the end of 2008.

Behind those three banking behemoths came Wells Fargo (WFC), with $1.31 trillion in assets and $781.4 billion in deposits.

The list is an illustration of the "too-big-to-fail" notion that has led unprecedented government support of troubled financial institutions like Citi, Fannie Mae (FNM), Freddie Mac (FRE) and AIG (AIG). Those top four banks hold 66% of U.S. banking assets and 58% of total deposits - and have also received over $144 billion in government funding to secure their financial health and support their acquisitions of troubled firms.

Rounding out the top 10 banks were HSBC (HBC), PNC (PNC), US Bancorp (USB), Bank of New York Mellon (BK), SunTrust (STI) and Capital One (COF) - each of which hold a fraction of the top four banks' deposits and assets.

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