Wells Fargo Sees Regulatory Order Eliminated as Company Moves Past Account Opening Scandals

Wells Fargo, OCC, regulations

Wells Fargo has had a 2015 regulatory order from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) eliminated, which involved add-on products which Wells Fargo sold improperly, Bloomberg reported Thursday (Jan. 20).

This, according to the report, shows the progress of CEO Charlie Scharf’s struggle to right the ship of the bank’s scandals from recent years. The report notes that Wells Fargo stopped selling the products in question in 2017.

“Wells Fargo’s top priority is building a risk and control infrastructure appropriate for its size and complexity,” the bank said in a press release Thursday. “The termination of the 2015 consent order is a step in this work, as the company continues to focus on resolving legacy regulatory issues.”

The order in question was put in place before the 2016 scandals, and there has been one other OCC action terminated under Scharf’s reign. Additionally, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) order expired last year.

However, Bloomberg also says Wells Fargo got a new sanction last September from the OCC. Scharf said there would still be setbacks even as the company has been making progress.

Wells Fargo recently reported that the second half of 2021 saw a 5% increase in demand for consumer and commercial loans, which could see better future forecasts for the financial services company. The bank saw its total revenue go from $18.5 billion at the end of 2020 to around $20.9 billion at the end of 2021.

Read more: Wells Fargo Sees Consumer and Commercial Loan Growth in the Second Half of 2021

In Wells Fargo’s annual earnings report, Scharf said the company “improved our financial returns, including reducing our expenses and returning a significant amount of excess capital to our shareholders by increasing our dividend and repurchasing $14.5 billion of common stock” in 2021.

“As the economy continued to recover, we saw increased consumer spending, higher investment banking fees, higher asset-based fees in our Wealth and Investment Management business, and strong equity gains in our affiliated venture capital and private equity businesses,” he continued.