Wells Fargo (WFC) spent years worried about the past. Now it can focus on the future.

The fourth-largest US bank plans to pursue growth and expansion in investment banking, credit cards, and wealth management now that it has shed a major growth restriction imposed last decade by regulators as punishment for a fake accounts scandal that roiled the San Francisco-based financial institution.

"Now I can start having more fun," Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in a Wall Street Journal interview this past week.

The lifting of a $1.95 trillion asset cap will help Scharf go on the offensive as he tries to make Wells Fargo into a major Wall Street investment banking player, edging deeper into a hypercompetitive business where it lags behind Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Morgan Stanley (MS).

In fact, Scharf told the Wall Street Journal he wants Wells Fargo to be one of the top five investment banks, and "then there'll be an argument about, 'Well, why top five? Why not four or three?'"

On Main Street, Wells Fargo also wants to play catch-up after missing out on major opportunities to lap up deposits during the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2023 regional banking turmoil. It also wants to add more credit card products and better integrate its wealth management with its retail branches.

Its growing pains under the asset cap have for years put Wells Fargo at an increasing disadvantage behind larger rivals — "the gift that keeps giving" for competitors, Piper Sandler bank analyst Scott Siefers told Yahoo Finance.

Growing its US consumer bank is where the "heavy lifting" is needed to move Wells Fargo's stock higher, TD Securities analyst Steven Alexopoulos added in a note this past week. The consumer business pulls in almost half of the bank's revenue.

Still, "igniting growth in this area is far from a layup," Alexopoulos added.

Even after passing its crucial milestone, Wells Fargo's stock didn't soar, ending up 2% this past week. But it is up 30% for the past 12 months, ahead of rivals Citigroup (C) and Bank of America (BAC) while lagging JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs.

"We didn't change any EPS estimates ... but now and over time I think they are in a growth mode, and ideally market share gain mode," Piper Sandler's Siefers said.

One place Wall Street expects Wells Fargo to more quickly show improvement over the near term is its spending on risk and compliance costs.

For years, the bank has funneled millions into ramping up those operations to meet regulators' expectations. Now that Wells Fargo's growth restrictions have been removed, analysts hope a lot of the extra spending will be plowed back into growing the bank.