If you live by the mortgage, you should die by the mortgage. That's what many folks appear to have expected for leading mortgage lender Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC). Well, it's not dead yet.

All things considered, the first quarter wasn't so bad. Results may have been a little short of analyst guesstimates, but revenue still rose 6%, net income still climbed 9%, and earnings per share still shot up by 10%. While the bank's return on assets was down slightly, return on equity ticked up a bit, and book value saw double-digit growth from last year.

Perhaps because they compete for deposits in many of the same markets, I often think of U.S.Bancorp (NYSE:USB) and Wells Fargo together. And by that standard, Wells Fargo did meaningfully better on net interest income (up 9% on a rather stable net interest margin of 4.85%) and had a more mixed performance on non-interest income. On a reported basis, non-interest income was up just 1%, but apart from mortgage banking, the number would have been up about 16%.

Loan growth was once again pretty strong as well. Reported growth of 8% isn't bad, and when you subtract the impact of large mortgage loan sales, the resulting 17% growth is all the more impressive. Likewise on the deposit side -- growth in average core deposits was 9% when stripping out mortgage escrow, yet the bank's overall cost of funds ended up at a rather reasonable 2.65%.

Looking a little deeper, I found it interesting, though not necessarily surprising, that the community-banking business had a tough quarter, while the wholesale-banking and financial arms did better. And that, in short, is one of the virtues of a well-diversified banking business -- if one segment or business drops the ball, there's usually a compensating business elsewhere that's doing pretty well.

Since I'll probably be writing on a few dozen different banks before this earnings season is done, I clearly can't love every bank stock I write about. So although I think Wells Fargo is still a fine bank, I'll leave it to Fools to decide for themselves where Wells Fargo fits in amongst the likes of U.S. Bancorp, Wachovia (NYSE:WB), Washington Mutual (NYSE:WM), and so on.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).