OCC Announces Enforcement Actions Against Wells Fargo Executives

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has ended the enforcement actions it pursued against 11 previously Wells Fargo senior bank managers.

Three enforcement actions announced Tuesday (Jan. 14) stem from administrative litigation that began with the OCC’s Notice of Fees filed in January 2020, and was the last of the 11 such actions, the regulator said in a Tuesday press release.

“The decisions issued today explained that thousands of bank employees, under pressure to meet unreasonable sales targets, engaged in widespread sales practices,” the release said.

The latest enforcement actions involved three former executives of Wells Fargo Bank, NA, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and their actions from 2013 to 2016, according to the release.

The OCC’s decisions showed they engaged in unsafe or unsound banking practices, such as failing to challenge the bank’s incentive compensation program and failing to manage audit activity that would detect and document fraudulent sales practices, the release said.

The three directors were sentenced to pay civil monetary penalties 10 million dollars, 7 million dollars and 1.5 million dollarsaccording to the release.

The eight other former Wells Fargo bank executives the OCC reached out to in previous enforcement actions paid civil monetary penalties totaling about $43.2 million, according to the release.

Wells Fargo was fined by the OCC Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and the City and County of Los Angeles in September 2016. At issue with the actions of both the OCC and the CFPB was the sales culture at Wells Fargo and whether employees were pushed to meet sales goals in any way, PYMNTS reported at the time.

In February, the OCC rescinded a 2016 consent order against Wells Fargo that related to deficiencies and unsafe or unsound practices in the bank’s risk management and sales practices.

The OCC’s order terminating the consent order said, “The OCC believes that the safety and soundness of the bank and its compliance with laws and regulations do not require the existence of the order.”

Wells Fargo said in a news release at the time that the sales practices consent order required the bank to revamp how it sells products and services.