Wells Fargo & Co. will pay $185 million to resolve claims that bank employees opened deposit and credit-card accounts without customers’ approval to satisfy sales goals and earn financial rewards, U.S. banking regulators said Thursday.
The San Francisco-based lender opened more than 2 million accounts that consumers may not have known about, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said in a statement. Wells Fargo, which fired 5,300 employees over the improper sales practices, agreed to pay a $100 million fine to the CFPB, $35 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and $50 million to the Los Angeles city attorney to settle the matter. The bank also will compensate customers who incurred fees or charges, the agencies said.
“Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said in his agency’s statement. “Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed.”
The bank agreed to resolve the allegations without admitting or denying the agencies’ accusations, and said in a statement that it had set aside $5 million for customer remediation.
“We regret and take responsibility for any instances where customers may have received a product that they did not request,” Wells Fargo said in its statement.
Thousands of employees at Wells Fargo were involved in opening accounts and moving funds that resulted in customers getting charged fees for services they didn’t seek, according to the regulators. Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer sued Wells Fargo last year and accused the bank of high-pressure quotas for workers that encouraged them to skirt the rules.
“When I worked at Wells Fargo, I faced the threat of being fired if I didn’t meet their unreasonable sales quotes every day, and it’s high time that Wells Fargo pays for preying on consumers’ financial livelihoods,” Khalid Taha, a former employee, said in a statement.
Wells Fargo shares climbed 0.3 percent to $49.93 at 12:18 p.m. in New York. The stock has dropped 8.1 percent this year, the third-worst performance in the 24-company KBW Bank Index.
By: Jesse Hamilton (Bloomberg News).
Photo: UPI.
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