The Justice Department is reportedly investigating alleged fraud in the lender’s wholesale banking unit
Wells Fargo’s two-year dark night of the soul doesn’t seem to have an endpoint in sight. The Justice Department is now investigating potential fraud at the megabank’s wholesale banking unit, according to reports.
Citing people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department is investigating whether management at the bank pressured employees to alter customers’ information without consent.
The investigation comes in the wake of revelations that employees in the wholesale banking unit – which services corporate customers – added Social Security numbers, birth dates and other customer information to documents in an effort to complete the documents prior to a regulatory deadline, according to an Associated Press report.
The latest scandal initially centered around the Wells Fargo business banking group, which caters to companies with annual sales between $5 million and $20 million, according to the AP. However, further reviews by the bank showed that the issue went further than just the business banking group.
Wells Fargo has not spoken about the matter in detail, but spokesman Alan Elias told the AP that it involved a new process and required documentation that the bank’s employees had to complete “to help ensure we know our customers.” Elias said that the issue “has not negatively impacted our customers.”
The latest investigation is just one of a string of scandals that have plagued the bank over the last two years. Last month, Wells Fargo agreed to pay a $2.1 billion fine to settle allegations that it had misrepresented the types of mortgages it sold to investors during the run-up to the housing meltdown.
