Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is an American multinational financial services company with corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California. The company was established by Henry Wells (1805–78) and William George Fargo (1818–81) on March 18, 1852. The two founders had built a start-up to help customers build businesses and manage their funds and called it Wells, Fargo & Company.

They were taking advantage of express business resulting from the California Gold Rush and they benefitted from the technological revolution of their time. With trains, canals, and stagecoaches, the company could easily connect with other communities and send payments securely by steamboat and stagecoach. Moving from the West to the East Coast by ship via the Isthmus of Panama, the company was able to handle the purchase, sale, and transport of gold dust, bullion, and other goods. In a fast-paced economy and with demand from customers growing, the company established offices in California, New York and around the world, enabling customers to find the necessary support any time they needed it. Customers could use Wells Fargo as their agent could act on their behalf without the need to do business with partners who were located far away.

Expansion: Stagecoaching Business

From 1855 to the mid-1860s, Wells Fargo expanded into the stagecoaching business with overland routes covering Missouri, the Midwest to the Rockies and the Far West. In 1861, it operated the western portion of the Pony Express route, from Salt Lake City to San Francisco. In 1866, after a massive merge, Wells Fargo owned all Western stagecoach lines and was at the time the biggest empire of stagecoaches in the world. With the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869, stagecoaching declined, but Wells Fargo coaches continued to operate, offering support to areas where the railroads did not operate, even up until the early 20th century.

Professionalism and Rise into Fame

Wells Fargo made a name for itself for their professionalism and exceptional services. Its agents and messengers were considered extremely professional and dedicated and were always prepared to face any hardships to get the job done. The company was also liberal and open to all customers regardless of creed, colour, or gender. Wells Fargo’s transcontinental delivery operations influenced the brand’s image and the horse-drawn nine-passenger Concord (New Hampshire) stagecoach, became their symbol. The company’s stagecoaching operations were also well-known to robbers who were interested in the company’s green treasure box stored under the driver’s seat. The box famously included gold bars, coins, financial papers, and the passengers’ expensive items. These boxes were guarded by gunslingers such as the legendary Wyatt Earp.

Wells Fargo Bank Mergers

In 1905, Wells Fargo’s banking operations merged with the Nevada National Bank to form the Wells Fargo Nevada National Bank. In 1923, this bank was unified with the Union Trust Company and formed the Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Co., shortened to Wells Fargo Bank in 1954. In 1960 it merged with American Trust Company and became the Wells Fargo Bank American Trust Company while in 1969, the Wells Fargo & Company was established. In the 21st century, Wells Fargo Bank had thousands of branches in the United States and became one of the country’s largest banks, providing a range of services, from banking to mortgages, insurance, and financial management. As a global brand, the company has subsidiaries, affiliates, and retail branches.

Controversy

The Wells Fargo account fraud scandal is a controversy which involves millions of fraudulent savings and checking accounts that were created without the clients’ consent. In late 2016, regulatory bodies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) fined the company US$185 million while, by the end of 2018, additional civil and criminal suits up to $2.7 billion were made. This fake account scandal had continued to impact Wells Fargo and former bank executives up until early 2021.

The bank had an image of stability, but its reputation was hurt by the widespread fraud, which resulted in the resignation of the CEO John Stumpf and a number of settlements between Wells Fargo and various parties.

€6 Million Fine

Ireland’s Central Bank fined an Irish subsidiary of Wells Fargo almost €6 million for five “serious” breaches between January 2014 and February 2019. They included the failure to accurately report the company’s capital position and to comply with a requirement about liquidity testing. The fine is the second largest the Central Bank has handed out, after the €21 million fine it issued to Permanent TSB for the tracker mortgage scandal. The Central Bank had determined that the fine was up to €8.4 million but it was later reduced to €5.88 million according to the bank’s settlement discount scheme. The Central Bank’s investigation into the Wells Fargo subsidiary was part of regulatory reporting inspection in five peer credit institutions in 2016.

Seána Cunningham, the Central Bank’s director of enforcement and anti-money laundering, said: “Regulatory returns are a tool used by the Central Bank to monitor the financial position of credit institutions and the risks to which they are exposed.” “The submission of inaccurate information undermines the Central Bank’s ability to properly supervise. Miscalculation and misreporting of the firm’s capital position, in particular, is a fundamental failure. A firm understanding its capital position, and the accurate reporting of this in its returns, are of paramount importance to understanding its safety and soundness.”

CFBB Investigation

In May 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was said to investigate Wells Fargo over its handling of consumer bank accounts and its “past disclosures to customers regarding the minimum qualifying debit card usage required for customers to receive a waiver of monthly service fees on certain consumer deposit accounts.”

In its filing, the company said it estimates potential losses for litigation in regard to the scandals at around $2.6 billion as of 31st March 2021.

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