How Congressmen are celebrating their grilling of Wells Fargo CEO
A "joyous occasion"? Maybe not for Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf, who testified on Capitol Hill Thursday about the bank's recent scandal.
The San Francisco-based bank was fined $185 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this month for creating more than 2 million fake accounts, between 2011 and 2015 that used customers' identities to boost employees' sale numbers.
But for members of the House Financial Services Committee Thursday morning, their 5-minutes of grilling left reasons to celebrate.
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Some lawmakers took it as an opportunity to put forth a distaste of the larger banking industry. "We have Wells Fargo before me, but I don't think you should be alone in this joyous experience," said Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat.
Sherman's remarks followed in a congratulatory fist bump, as spotted by Twitter user Ivan the K, between him and Rep. Ed Perlmutter, a Colorado Democrat.
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Perlmutter had spoken earlier questioning the bank's emphasis on "cross-selling" -- the idea that bank customers are encouraged to own several Wells Fargo "products" -- and pointing that such terminology could have led to the accounts scandal.
"You don’t sell Veg-o-Matics," Perlmutter said. "Why are you calling these things stores? You’re a bank.”
The creation of bogus accounts was first uncovered by a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2013, to which Strumpf said he had been aware of such practices occurring but did not know it was becoming a larger issue.
Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees, 10 percent of those were branch managers, in the wake of the fines enacted earlier this month.
Last week, Stumpf spent three hours in front of the Senate Banking Committee. Afterwards, the bank announced he would forfeit $45 million in executive pay.
In an interesting display of bipartisan unity, both the House and the Senate took aggressive stances toward calling out Wells Fargo for the shady practices.
"The damage you have done to the market, to your industry, far exceeds the damage to your own business," said Rep. Mick Mulvaney, a Republican from South Carolina, according to the Times. "Y'all were rotten."
The scandal has also led to lawmakers questioning whether Strumpf should maintain a role as CEO and chairman. According to Stumpf, the board acts independently.
Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.
