Fed's Dudley Says Wells Fargo Shows Bank Culture Needs Improving

The scandal involving Wells Fargo & Co. that surfaced last year shows the U.S. banking industry still has work to do on improving its culture, Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley said.

“Like mortgage brokers in the early 2000s, it appears that job security depended almost exclusively on meeting targets, regardless of how those targets were met,” Dudley said Tuesday in remarks prepared for a speech in London. “There was a serious mismatch between the values Wells Fargo espoused and the incentives that Wells Fargo employed.”

Revelations that Wells Fargo employees may have opened more than 2 million deposit and credit-card accounts without customers’ permission led to the resignation of former Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, as well as the firing or demoting of other senior managers and changes to employee incentive systems. 

The bank also eliminated a system of sales targets that regulators said encouraged workers to create fake accounts.