In the case of fictitious accounts, the US major bank Wells Fargo has to pay a fine in the billions. The money house accepted penalties totaling $ 3.0 billion (€ 2.8 billion) as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice and the SEC, the authorities said on Friday.
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Wells Fargo had previously received severe penalties from US authorities for the sham account scandal and a series of other violations of the rules for the sale of financial products. In addition, there were numerous layoffs and expensive comparisons with class plaintiffs.
Illegally earned millions of dollars
Wells Fargo had admitted in 2016 that employees had been opening bank and credit card accounts that were not authorized by customers on a large scale for years. The Justice Department said on Friday that the bank had misused its customers’ personal information and illegally generated millions of dollars in fees and interest.
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But the US authorities also did not cut a good figure in the affair. The banking supervisory authority later admitted that several opportunities were missed to find out about the trickery earlier. Although there had been hints from whistleblowers and media reports years earlier, the consequences did not follow until September 2016.
The scandal plunged the previously respected bank into a serious crisis. In the course of the affair, bank boss John Stumpf and numerous managers had to leave, more than 5000 employees lost their jobs. Last year, Wells Fargo deposited nearly $ 4 billion in fines. In the meantime, the bank – including the agreement now reached – has had to pay fines of more than seven billion dollars.
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