Wells Fargo CEO Defends Bank Culture, Lays Blame With Bad Employees
Says that at the bank, ‘There was no incentive to do bad things’
John Stumpf, chief executive of Wells Fargo & Co., began to speak publicly Tuesday for the first time since the bank was slapped with a $185 million fine last week over its sales practices, defending the firm and the work he said it had already been doing to weed out bad behavior.
But Mr. Stumpf, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, wouldn’t comment on who was ultimately responsible for the practices and sales-driven culture that led employees to open as many as two million accounts without customers’ knowledge. Mr. Stumpf said that at the bank, “There was no incentive to do bad things.”
Rather, Mr. Stumpf appeared to lay blame for the problems with the employees involved than with any flaw in Wells Fargo’s systems or culture. He said that some employees won’t “honor” the bank’s culture and that the bank had changed its sales goals to put in more discipline and to take “more risk off the table.”
Rest from the WSJ here…
Ah, the memories…
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