The House of Representatives Financial Services Committee is seeking interviews with several bank executives in the wake of revelations that the bank employed thousands of staffers who created fake accounts in order to meet performance goals.
Committee chairman and Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling is seeking records pertaining to allegations of fraud by Wells Fargo employees, according to a letter sent to the bank’s general counsel on Friday.
That letter seeks transcribed interviews with CFO John Shrewsberry, COO and president Timothy Sloan, chief risk officer Michael Loughlin and Carrie Tolstedt, the executive who oversaw the bank unit responsible for fake accounts, and who departed the bank with a pay package worth nearly $100 million.
The House Financial Services Committee is also seeking Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf to testify at its hearing, which will be scheduled for later in September.
“We welcome the opportunity to provide the Committee with information on this matter and to discuss steps we have taken to affirm our commitment to customers,” a Wells Fargo representative told CNBC in a statement.
Wells Fargo’s headaches with regulators and lawmakers have been growing for the last eight days, after agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau slapped the bank with an $185 million fine. The bank, over a five-year time frame, saw 5,300 staffers — many of them low-ranking staff, according to Wells Fargo’s CFO — open as many as 1.5 million deposit accounts and 565,000 credit card accounts, of which the bank could not “rule out the possibility that an account was unauthorized.”
Others have expressed doubts that senior executives weren’t aware of the problems at the bank.
On Thursday, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren told CNBC that there is “a serious problem with senior management at Wells Fargo.”
Wells Fargo’s Stumpf is expected to testify before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday.
source”cnbc”
