Petition to acting Comptroller of the Currency Keith Noreika and FDIC Chair Martin Gruenberg:
Wells Fargo’s repeated illegal behavior and unsafe and unsound practices – including opening 3.5 million fraudulent accounts and forcing unneeded auto insurance on more than 800,000 customers – are not only outrageous, they are grounds to lose the large public subsidies enjoyed by the bank.
We call on you to urgently begin a tough review of Wells Fargo’s wrongdoing as well as the grounds for revoking Wells Fargo’s bank charter and terminating the bank’s access to FDIC deposit insurance backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
After Wells Fargo fraudulently opened 3.5 million customer accounts without permission, you would think everyone would agree it’s time to crack down.
But Wall Street’s cronies in Congress and the White House just voted in the dead of night to protect banks like Wells Fargo from getting held accountable in court, killing the Consumer Bureau’s rule against banks’ forced arbitration “ripoff clauses.”
It's time for bank regulators in Washington to step up.
With the power to pull Wells Fargo’s bank charter or access to public FDIC deposit insurance, they can deliver real accountability for the crimes at Wells Fargo. They just need the courage to do it.
Sign and share the petition to banking regulators: Cut off government support to Wells Fargo.
Every major bank in the U.S. enjoys major public subsidies and benefits.
Bank charters are publicly granted, and the FDIC insurance for their deposit accounts is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.
Wells Fargo’s regulators at the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) and FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) have a rule: Engage in “unsafe and unsound practices” like breaking the law and you can lose those public benefits.1
Wells Fargo has repeatedly violated the law. Cutting off their public benefits could even force Wells Fargo to wind down, and send a clear message that banks can’t expect to get away with illegal behavior.
Sign and share the petition to banking regulators: Cut off government support to Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo got issued $185 million in fines last year for the fake accounts scandal, but that’s virtually a rounding error in a year they made $22 billion in profits.2
Since then, news keeps coming out about more ways Wells has broken the law – illegal overdraft charges, bogus auto loans forced on 800,000 people, illegal student loan servicing.3
It’s clear Wells Fargo won’t clean house on its own. Twelve out of 15 members on the board of directors today were overseeing the bank during the fake accounts scandal.4 Even the executives who left walked away with millions and no jail time.
Bank regulators have a big opportunity to do the right thing. Staff at OCC have already found unsafe and unsound practices at Wells Fargo and recommended tough enforcement action (even if the former Wells Fargo lawyer Trump installed to head the agency5 tries to cover it up).
And the situation is even more promising at the FDIC, where only one out of the four current members of the board of directors is a Trump pick. They just need to know the public is with them if they launch a serious investigation into Wells Fargo’s illegal behavior – and cutting off its public deposit insurance.
Sign and share the petition to banking regulators: Cut off government support to Wells Fargo.
Sources:
1. Demand Progress, "Joint Letters: Key Consumer, Labor, and Financial Reform Groups Push Regulators to Revoke Wells Fargo’s Charter and Deposit Insurance," Oct. 4, 2017.
2. Wells Fargo, "Wells Fargo Reports $5.3 Billion in Quarterly Net Income," Jan. 13, 2017.
3. Demand Progress, "Joint Letters: Key Consumer, Labor, and Financial Reform Groups Push Regulators to Revoke Wells Fargo’s Charter and Deposit Insurance," Oct. 4, 2017.
4. Elizabeth Warren, "Warren Highlights New Evidence of Wells Fargo Misconduct, Renews Call for Federal Reserve to Remove Bank Board Members," Aug. 16, 2017.
5. The Intercept, "More Trump Populism: Hiring a Bank Lawyer to Attack CFPB Bank Rules," July 20, 2017.