Wells Fargo Facing Record $1B-Plus Fine

An accord with the CFPB isn’t imminent, nor is one likely to be announced this month, the people said, asking not to be named because the discussions are private.

Chopra has vowed to make punishments of large firms more painful, and the agency may ultimately seek restrictions on the bank’s businesses or other changes in addition to a financial penalty, some of the people said.

Wells Fargo aims to resolve as many of the agency’s concerns simultaneously as possible, which could offer some relief to shareholders. The talks could also stall.

The CFPB’s punishments of the bank have been notching higher for years.

In 2016, the agency fined the firm $100 million for opening accounts without customers’ permission. In 2018, the agency imposed a $1 billion sanction for additional misconduct, but gave the bank a $500 million credit for a concurrent settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Measured against the portion that the CFPB collected, a sanction surpassing $1 billion would more than double the old amount — though the agency would probably use $1 billion as the prior benchmark.

Chopra, appointed by President Joe Biden, is under pressure from progressives in the Democratic party to reinvigorate the consumer watchdog, which they say pulled back from tougher policy making and enforcement under Republican President Donald Trump.

“Corporate recidivism has become normalized and calculated as the cost of doing business,” Chopra said in March. “We must forcefully address repeat lawbreakers to alter company behavior and ensure companies realize it is cheaper, and better for their bottom line, to obey the law than to break it.”

(Image: Bloomberg)