Wells Fargo’s Fraud Issues Don’t Seem To Have Been Present At Other Big Banks

As the fallout continues from last week’s revelations about Wells Fargo‘s “out-of-the-box” methods for upping consumer enrollment in their various products (which included signing consumers up for products without so much as getting their permission or even informing them), there seems to be some slightly heartening news for banking customers this week. Well, customers other than Wells Fargo’s, anyway — as it seems the fraud issues regulators found there were only present there.

While extremely enthusiastic sales practices proliferate across several consumer credit products, everyone else in the game seems to be, at minimum, actually getting their customers’ express consent before signing them on for things. This, according to the CFPB, is not necessarily sufficient to guarantee that said banks are doing everything right, but it does highlight a kind of bright line for the fraud Wells Fargo clearly got caught up in.

Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), said during an interview with CNBC that he does not see problems similar to those discovered at Wells Fargo occurring “on any kind of systematic basis at any other bank.”

Wells Fargo has been hit with fines of $185 million, plus another $5 million to customers for creating more than 2 million fake accounts for products like credit and debit cards to meet aggressive sales targets.

The actions at Wells spurred five lawmakers to write U.S. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby calling for an investigation. Credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service also commented, saying the “embarrassing episode” would have a negative impact on Wells Fargo’s outstanding debt.