Wells Fargo Makes Some Changes To The Troubled Retail Unit

Wells Fargo’s new CEO Tim Sloan said on Thursday that a comprehensive review of the bank’s sales practices will be done ‘relatively quickly’ before unveiling the immediate changes going into place under new retail banking head Mary Mack. 

Those efforts will include a review of sales practices, reaching out to wrongly terminated employees and reorganizing the compensation plan to reward good behavior instead of illegal behavior.

They also plan to ramp up marketing — which, given the hit the business has taken, is understandable. Well has reportedly hired an outside consultant to guide changes to the retail business.

There have also been some structural changes to the reporting structure — the chief risk officer in retail now reports to the firm’s risk chief instead of the head of retail. The bank has also designed a ‘Change Leader’ position in the unit to focus on “what great customer experience looks like.”

“We’re going to leave no stone unturned,” said Sloan.

“I don’t want there to be a question about how we interact with customers at Wells Fargo,” he added. “We’re going to put that to rest. That’s going to be done in a very comprehensive way and it’s going to be done relatively quickly, but it’s going to be done right.”

The public mea culpa comes as Wells is sorting out the aftermath of a $185 million judgment from the CFPB over as many as 2 million fraudulent accounts created by  employees in retail customers’ names without their permission.

At the time, the bank said it fired 5,300 employees for improper sales practices over a period of five years, but it seems Wells was also firing employees for raising red flags about the sales and quota setting that actively encouraged fraud.

Wells Fargo welcomes back employees fired “inappropriately” if they would like to return, Sloan said. He took the reins on Oct. 12 from former CEO John Stumpf, who left abruptly in connection to the meltdown.