Wells Fargo Says CFPB Ended Compliance-Risk Consent Order

Wells Fargo said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau terminated a consent order related to the company’s compliance risk management program.

The order was issued in 2018 and is the 12th consent order closed by regulators since 2019 and the sixth since the start of the year, according to a Monday (April 28) press release.

“Today’s termination, along with the recent closure of other consent orders, demonstrates that we have completed much of our common risk and control infrastructure work, including work that is required by other orders,” Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said in the release. “I am proud of the work done by our teams and remain confident that we will complete the work needed to close our other open consent orders.”

Wells Fargo has been struggling with regulatory issues for the better part of a decade following the “fake accounts” scandal at the bank in 2016. The Federal Reserve also placed an asset cap on the lender in 2018, limiting its balance sheet to $1.95 trillion.

The CFPB did not respond to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Wells Fargo’s efforts to regain compliance have fostered hopes that the asset cap could soon be lifted, Reuters reported Monday.

Wells Fargo announced in January the termination of a 2022 CFPB consent order related to automobile and mortgage lending and consumer deposit accounts.

That order included a $3.7 billion fine and required Wells Fargo to halt the practice of surprise overdraft fees or fees for deposit accounts “when the consumer had available funds at the time of a purchase or other debit transaction, but then subsequently had a negative balance once the transaction settled,” the CFPB said in December 2022.

The order settled a case in which the CFPB accused the bank of a series of illegal acts, such as illegally assessed fees and interest charges on loans, wrongful car repossessions and unlawful overdraft fees.

The CFPB is scaling back its enforcement of financial institutions. The agency said it wants to focus more on crimes against consumers — particularly military families — and less on things like digital payments, medical debt and student loans.

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