The House Financial Services Committee will conduct an investigation into Wells Fargo for its illicit creation of accounts for customers, committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling said Friday.
The investigation promises to be the most comprehensive congressional response to the scandal yet.
The committee is seeking a hearing with Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf and transcribed interviews with other executives, including the former head of the company’s consumer banking division, Carrie Tolstedt, who is under scrutiny for a $125 retirement compensation package granted this year.
The committee also wants to question federal regulators who probed Wells Fargo and extracted $185 million in total fines. Although the $100 million paid to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is the largest fine the relatively new agency has yet collected, some critics, mostly on the Left, have expressed concern that it is insufficient and that bank executives should be held accountable.
In a letter to Wells Fargo, Hensarling wrote that his committee is “very concerned by these serious allegations” that Wells Fargo employees created millions of banking and credit card accounts for customers without the customers’ knowledge or consent, in some cases faking email addresses or PINs to do so. Wells Fargo employees supposedly created the accounts to meet sales goals. Customers were charged fees associated with the accounts in some cases.
The Texas Republican also asked regulators for all documents relating to their investigations of the banks.
The hearing is meant to be held this month, after Stumpf is slated to appear before the Senate Banking Committee next week.
Several federal prosecutors also are reported to be weighing investigations of Wells Fargo.
Democrats have sought to elevate concerns about Wells Fargo’s scandal and the possibility that other banks might engage in similar practices and have pushed for the bank to claw back compensation given to executives in charge during the time the accounts scandal took place. They have also criticized Hensarling for advancing legislation that would expand congressional oversight of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
