Wells Fargo head to face Senate grilling

The banking giant’s top exec will appear before a Senate panel as the company continues to deal with the fallout of several scandals

Wells Fargo head to face Senate grilling
Wells Fargo’s top executive is facing a Senate grilling next week as the bank continues to weather scandal after scandal.

CEO Tim Sloan is scheduled to testify before the Senate Banking Committee Oct. 3, according to a report by the Charlotte Observer. Sloan’s testimony comes as the banking giant deals with the fallout of a massive scandal in which its employees opened millions of phony customer accounts. The bank has also come under fire after recent revelations that it modified customers’ mortgages without their knowledge or consent, and that it added unnecessary insurance to thousands of customers’ car loans.

“We welcome the opportunity to further update the committee about the progress Wells Fargo has made over the last year,” Wells Fargo spokesperson Mark Folk said. “Since last October, we have taken numerous important steps to fix issues, make things right for our customers, and build a better bank.”

Whatever its efforts, the bank’s problems don’t seem to be going away. It was recently revealed that Wells Fargo radically underestimated the total number of phony accounts opened by its sales employees. House Republicans recently said that the $100 million penalty levied against the bank by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was nowhere near enough. And Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen called the bank’s scandals “egregious and unacceptable” and hinted that the Fed might take action against the bank, according to the Observer.

Sloan will have to face questions about the scandal next week, and will hopefully fare better than his predecessor. Former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf appeared before Congress last fall and was subjected to intense grilling, the Observer reported. Shortly afterward, Stumpf resigned.


Related stories:
"CFPB botched Wells Fargo settlement, GOP leaders say"
More trouble for Wells Fargo