Wells Fargo announced Tuesday that it had fired four executives as its board of directors nears completion of its investigations into sham accounts set up by low-level employees to allegedly meet sales quotas.
The four executives are current or former senior managers of the megabank’s community banking division. They will not receive their 2016 bonuses and will forfeit the stock and stock options they were awarded, Wells Fargo said in a statement.
The terminations are just the latest effort by the San Francisco-bank to move beyond a scandal that has already led to the departure of longtime chief executive and chairman, John Stumpf. The bank has repeatedly been pummeled by Congress after it admitted that it fired 5,300 employees over five years for setting up accounts customers didn’t want or know about.
The bank identified the terminated managers as Claudia Russ Anderson, former community bank chief risk officer; Pamela Conboy, Arizona lead regional president; Shelley Freeman, former Los Angeles regional president; and Matthew Raphaelson, head of community bank strategy and initiatives. They could not be immediately reached for comment.
In addition to an investigation being led by the bank’s independent board members, Wells Fargo is also still being investigated by several regulators. Federal prosecutors are now considering criminal or civil charges against the company, the Labor Department is investigating whether it illegally fired employees who reported the wrongdoing and several cities and states, including California, have stopped doing business with the bank for now. The House Financial Services Committee is also reviewing thousands of pages of documents turned over by Wells Fargo.