Regulator will vet Wells Fargo’s CEO pick

Wells Fargo’s quest to replace ousted CEO Tim Sloan may have just gotten a bit harder, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency now saying that that it will exercise its power to vet the scandal-plagued bank’s pick for the position.

Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting told Congress this week that he would use his authority to oversee troubled lenders to review any candidate Wells Fargo proposes, according to a CNBC report.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), one of the bank’s fiercest critics, called on Otting last month to exercise his regulatory authority in Wells Fargo’s CEO search. However, Otting said that although he will review any proposed candidate, he does not intend to make his findings public, CNBC reported.

Warren and other Democrats have accused Otting and other regulators of being too soft on the embattled bank – a charge Otting denied, CNBC reported.

The search for Sloan’s replacement already faces challenges, according to CNBC. There are not many people with the experience necessary to run a bank that large – and many who do have the right qualifications might not want to hitch their wagon to a company that has been mired in scandal after scandal. The search is also being hampered by limits on how much Wells can pay for the job, according to a Reuters report. Intense regulatory scrutiny of the bank’s pick is likely to narrow the field of eligible candidates even further, CNBC reported.

Sloan became CEO in 2017, replacing former CEO John Stumpf, who left the bank in the wake of its fake-accounts scandal, in which it was revealed that Wells employees had opened millions of unauthorized customer accounts. However, numerous other scandals came to light during Sloan’s tenure, and he was ousted in March after numerous calls for him to step down.

Wells Fargo general counsel C. Allen Parker is currently serving as interim CEO.