While lending has increased in the past six years, it doesn’t match the growth rate before the crisis. Net loans from U.S. banks climbed 31 percent between 2011 and the first quarter of this year, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. They grew 54 percent between 2001 and 2007.

Even if the big banks make as much money as they did before the crisis, they’re not as profitable as they once were by several measures. Among firms that survived the crises, return on assets is about 35 percent lower than before the crisis. That measures how much they earn on each dollar of their portfolios.

Return on equity, which looks at net income per dollar of shareholder equity, is less than half of what it was. The latter is much worse than pre-crisis levels because the banks were allowed to have very little capital then, which multiplied the number of failures when the housing market crashed. Higher capital required by post-crisis rules lowers the return on that capital, even if assets earn the same margin.

When return on equity is below 10 percent, banks can’t attract new investors, said Wayne Abernathy, executive vice president of the American Bankers Association, the sector’s largest lobbying group. Without new capital from outside, they can’t grow as fast and lose market share, he said.

“The industry is recovering, but we’re not where we were before the crisis,” Abernathy said. “There was overkill in regulation because many were written in a hurry. We’re just talking about rationalizing and refining the rules.”

Share prices of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan and Wells Fargo & Co. have hit record highs this year. Stocks of banks that suffered more severe damage in the crisis, such as Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America, remain well below their pre-crisis levels. And fixed-income trading operations that once fueled epic profitability are mired in a long slump, forcing banks to rely more on less volatile businesses.

The absolute profit figures for the big banks also don’t tell the full story because the nation’s economic output is much bigger than it was before the crisis, Abernathy said.

Last month, all 34 banks in the Federal Reserve’s annual stress tests passed, the first time that’s happened since the exercises began in 2009. Industry advocates said it shows banks are strong enough to weather a crisis, and that it’s time to ease regulation.

But rule proponents argue the opposite: The near-record profits posted this month show lenders can make money for shareholders, fuel the economy and do so safely.

“That’s all good news for Main Street -- continued economic growth and ultimately more broadly shared prosperity,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a Wall Street watchdog. “However, that is also what is directly threatened by the mindless deregulatory zeal of too many in Washington, who are baselessly attacking Dodd-Frank for almost every ill in America.”