Wells Fargo Names New CEO
The news comes six months after Tim Sloan left the post in the face of political pressure.
Six months after its then-CEO Tim Sloan resigned in the face of criticism from lawmakers and others, Wells Fargo has named Bank of New York Mellon Chairman and CEO Charles Scharf as its new chief executive officer and president.
Allen Parker, the bank’s interim CEO, will lead the bank through the shift in leadership, set for Oct. 21. He will then return to his prior role as general counsel.
“Charlie is a proven leader and an experienced CEO who has excelled at strategic leadership and execution and is well-positioned to lead Wells Fargo’s continued transformation,” said Wells Fargo Board Chair Betsy Duke in a statement.
Scharf has been in financial services for over 24 years and was CEO of Visa from 2012 to 2016 before joining BNY Mellon. Earlier, he served as CEO of Retail Financial Services for JPMorgan Chase for nine years.
The news comes about three years of Wells Fargo’s fake-accounts scandal came to dominate news headlines.
(See A Timeline of Wells Fargo Scandals).
Last month, there were reports that the bank allegedly imposed fees on clients months after they’d closed accounts. In some cases, the overdraft fees totaled “hundreds or even thousands of dollars,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said in a letter sent to the bank.
As a result, the bank said earlier this month that it would start an “extensive review” of how it closes client accounts and what fees it charges in the process, the New York Times reported.
Wells Fargo named Jim Hays as the new head of Wells Fargo Advisors, with prior WFA leader David Kowach now set to lead the firm’s Community Banking unit.
As of June 30, Wells Fargo Advisors included 13,799 FAs and some $1.7 trillion in assets. That’s down 29 from the prior quarter, 427 from the second quarter of 2018 and 1,287 from Sept. 30, 2016, when news of some 1.5 million fake accounts and 500,000 credit cards in the Community Bank operations came to dominate headlines.
Hays has been with Wells Fargo since late 2005 and most recently led its newly formed Private Wealth Financial Advisors group, which includes advisors grouped in hubs that serve high-net-worth clients.
The bank is set to report its third-quarter earnings on Oct. 15.
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