Ahead of its scheduled congressional hearings in the coming week, Wells Fargo & Co. debuted the concept of two new bank accounts that set limits on the amount of fees that can be charged to customers. One account will limit overdraft fees to once per month and will come with checks, while the other type of account will have no overdraft fees and will not come with checks, Bloomberg reported.
The account with limited overdraft fees will come at the cost of $10 a month, while the option without overdraft charges and checks be $5 a month. On Tuesday (March 3), the bank said it would let its current clients know about the new accounts when they become available.
The news occurred as Chief Executive Officer Charlie Scharf is scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services Committee for testimony. Board member James Quigley as well as Betsy Duke, the Wells Fargo chair, are expected to come in for their own hearing the next day.
Ed Kadletz, who heads up Wells Fargo’s deposit products group, said per the report, “This is something that we’ve really been working on for quite some time. Charlie has brought an energy and a focus to the company to really get after the things that are most important, and so this has been able to bubble to the top.”
In separate news, Scharf wants to stamp out any hint of scandal by revamping the firm’s reporting lines and divvying up the banking giant’s three divisions into five, per a report earlier in the month. The wholesale bank will be divided into a commercial bank providing back-end services for companies and a separate investment bank that has a capital markets focus.
Additionally, the consumer bank will be divided in half, with one part focused on small businesses as well as branches and the other on consumer lending, as was the case prior to 2017 when they were joined together.
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