Wells Ups Estimates Of Legal Losses To $3.1B

Wells Fargo, the embattled national bank, is reportedly upping the money it may lose from legal actions, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The report, citing the bank’s quarterly securities filing, said the bank expects the potential losses from legal actions stemming in part from its fake account scandal to be $3.1 billion as of the end of March. That is up from $2.7 billion through the end of 2018 and $2.2 billion through the end of September. The Wall Street Journal, noted Wells Fargo, blamed several matters for raising the estimate for losses due to those actions.

The Wall Street Journal noted that Wells Fargo also said in the filing that the review of its wealth and investment business has been completed and that it has not found signs of any widespread issues with that unit. The inquiry came after former employees contended financial advisers at Wells Fargo were steering customers into inappropriate products and moving client assets to get bigger bonuses. Wells Fargo noted that it is looking at disclosures made to customers in the past on debit card usage to waive a monthly service fee on deposit accounts. “Based on the possibility of confusion by some customers regarding the types of transactions that counted toward the waiver, we expect to refund certain monthly service and related fees to affected customers,” the bank said in the filing, reported the WSJ.

The move on the part of Wells Fargo comes as the company is in search of a new CEO, recently hiring a headhunter to do its bidding. The banking giant wants to hire a woman who can deal with public perception and regulatory issues, according to a report by Reuters. If it were to hire a female CEO it would be the only major U.S. bank to have a female at the helm. It is hoping doing that will improve its image with the public, which has been battered over the years from one scandal after another. Its former CEO Tim Sloan departed the company suddenly in March and is the second CEO to leave since the scandal broke.