Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is a banking company that provides diversified financial and insurance services in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Organized in 1998 as a result of the merger of Wells Fargo & Co. and Norwest.

Performance indicators

2023

Weak dynamics compared to competitors

Eighth largest bank in the world

The largest banks in the world by capitalization for June 2023

History

2024: Dismissal of all employees who installed job simulation programs on their PCs

In mid-June 2024, it became known that in May, the financial company Wells Fargo & Co. laid off more than a dozen employees who installed programs on their PCs to simulate work.

According to reports filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, employees from the firm's asset and investment management division were "terminated after considering charges related to simulating active work."

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Bloomberg

Wells Fargo requires the highest standards from employees and does not tolerate unethical behavior, a company spokesman said.

Devices and software to simulate desktop activities (moving the mouse cursor) became popular when many office employees moved to work from home during a pandemic, when many companies introduced remote control systems that record mouse movements and keyboard use. In response, employees began to buy special gadgets to deceive management, as evidenced by discussions on their use on the social networks Reddit and TikTok. Such gadgets are available on Amazon.com for less than $20.

It's unclear whether the employees fired by Wells Fargo faked active work from home or directly in the office. Financial industry giants have been known to aggressively push for workers to return to offices when the pandemic waned, though Wells Fargo waited longer than its rivals and began requiring employees to return to the office as part of a "hybrid flexible model" in early 2022. The bank now expects most employees to be in the office at least three days a week, while steering committee members work from the office at least four days a week, and many employees, such as branch workers, are in the office all five days a week.^[1]

2023

Staff reduction

World banks cut more than 60 thousand jobs in 2023

Wells Fargo top executive to pay $3 million for brazen investor deception

On May 30, 2023, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reported that the former head of retail banking at Wells Fargo & Co. Carrie Tolstedt (Carrie Tolstedt) as part of the settlement agreement agreed to pay a fine of $3 million for deceiving investors. Read more here.

Vice President of the Bank Mishra urinated on an elderly woman on a plane

Wells Fargo Bank in January 2023 fired its vice president, who urinated on an elderly woman in the business class of an airplane. Top manager Shankar Mishra was drunk and, according to him, did not understand what he had done. Later, the banker sobered up, paid for the injured dry cleaning and paid compensation so that the case did not go to court. However, the insulted pensioner refused the money. Now the police are dealing with the case. Mishra himself is still in hiding.

2021: $250 million fine for inflated loan fees and imposing insurance

In September 2021, Wells Fargo was subject to a new fine of $250 million for failure to comply with the requirements of the payment agreement for affected customers. The fine was awarded by the Office of Currency Control (OCC), one of the main regulators. banking sector USA

US bank Wells Fargo admitted that it opened 3.5 million fake accounts between 2002 and 2017 and allowed its employees to receive bonuses related to the sale of new products, as well as accrued unnecessary premiums to more than 0.5 million customers on their car loans. In addition, the credit institution was accused of inflated loan commissions.

In 2018, the OCC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined the California bank $1 billion and ordered it to reimburse affected customers for wrongful amounts, as well as strengthen the bank's risk management program. In addition to the fine, Wells Fargo is subject to restrictions on the bank's operations until existing problems in servicing mortgages are properly addressed.

Wells Fargo to pay $250 million for inflated loan fees and imposing insurance

Wells Fargo failed to comply with requirements made to the OCC bank in 2018. This is unacceptable. OCC will continue to use all tools at our disposal, including restrictions on doing business, to ensure that national banks address issues in a timely manner, treat customers fairly and operate in a safe and reliable manner, Acting Comptroller of Currency Michael Hsu said.

Also, Wells Fargo Bank was fined $3 billion due to a scandal with fake accounts. The bank has already paid more than $7 billion in financial fines related to its business practices.

The OCC banned John Stumpf, who ran Wells Fargo from 2005 to October 2016, from working in banking for life. In a statement, Charles Scharf said the new fine showed more work was needed to address significant, long-standing shortcomings.^[2]

2020: Protesters set fire to Minneapolis office

In May 2020, protesters near the fifth police station in Minneapolis , following the destruction of stores, burned the Wells Fargo bank building. Its branch is across the street from the police station.

2019: Earnings per day - over $61 million

The 20 most profitable companies in the world. Earnings per day, 2019

2019

2018: Hundreds of mortgages lose homes due to computer glitch at bank

In early August 2018, it became known that due to a computer failure in the Wells Fargo bank system, several hundred mortgage borrowers lost their homes. The financial company, which has repeatedly found itself at the center of high-profile scandals, agreed to pay compensation to affected customers.

From the document that Wells Fargo sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, it follows that the software system for processing mortgage loans in the bank worked incorrectly from April 2010 to October 2015. Due to the error, the computer rejected applications for revision or did not offer new mortgage conditions for 625 customers. As a result, houses on mortgages were collected from 400 people. 

Several hundred mortgage borrowers lending to one of the largest US banks, Wells Fargo, were evicted from their homes due to a computer failure in the bank's system

It turned out that the system of initial automatic verification of loan applications was mistaken when calculating fees for the provided legal services to clients and eventually considered them insolvent. Customers in difficult financial situations tried to use a federal program that helped families at risk of being left without homes. It was launched by the US Treasury Department in 2009.

To compensate for the damage, Wells Fargo was forced to allocate $8 million, the third largest bank in the United States said in a statement.

According to CNN Money's Wells Fargo, there is "no clear direct causal link" to foreclosure of mortgaged property in a computer failure, however, customers who were denied a mortgage change did lose their homes.

The incident continued a series of scandals involving Wells Fargo. Earlier in August 2018, the US Department of Justice announced that the bank had agreed to pay a fine of $2.1 billion for issuing mortgage loans with knowingly false information about customer income. The US government said these loans intensified the 2008 financial crisis and had a negative impact on the global economy.^[3]

Notes