NEW YORK (AP) — The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that Wells Fargo is no longer subject to harsh restraints the Fed placed on the bank in 2018 for having a toxic sales and banking culture.
It's a win for Wells Fargo, which has spent nearly a decade trying to convince the public and policymakers that it had changed its ways.
"We are a different and far stronger company today because of the work we’ve done,” said Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf in a statement. Scharf also announced that each of the 215,000 employees at Wells Fargo would receive a $2,000 award for turning the bank around.
Wells Fargo used to have a corporate culture where it placed unreasonable sales goals on its branch employees, which resulted in employees opening up millions of fake accounts in order to meet those goals. Wells' top executives called its branches “stores” and employees were expected to cross-sell customers into as many banking products as possible, even if the customer did not want or need them.
After an investigation by The Los Angeles Times in 2016, Wells Fargo shut down its sales culture and fired much of its leadership and board of directors. The fake accounts scandal cost Wells Fargo billions of dollars in fines and lost business, and permanently tarnished its reputation, particularly because the scandal broke only a few years after the Great Recession and financial crisis. It was later revealed that Wells Fargo opened up roughly 3.5 million accounts that were not wanted or needed by customers.
Wells Fargo, once thought to be the best run bank in the country, was now the poster child of the worst practices of banking in decades.
In order to push Wells to fix itself, the Federal Reserve took the unusual step of placing Wells Fargo in a program where the bank could grow no larger than it was in 2018. No bank had previously been placed into such a program, known as an asset cap. The Fed required Wells to fix it culture and redo its entire risk and compliance departments in order to address its problems.
Since taking over in 2019, Scharf's goal has been to convince the Federal Reserve that Wells Fargo had fixed its toxic banking practices. With the asset cap removed, the bank can now pursue more deposits, new accounts and take on additional investment banking businesses by holding additional securities on its balance shet.
FILE - A sign stands outside a branch of Wells Fargo bank Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Littleton, Colo. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
DENVER (AP) — A Frontier Airlines plane hit and killed a pedestrian on the runway of the Denver International Airport during takeoff, airport authorities said, sparking an engine fire and forcing passengers to evacuate.
The plane, on route from Denver to Los Angeles International Airport, “reported striking a pedestrian during takeoff at DEN at approximately 11:19 p.m. on Friday," the airport's official X account wrote.
A spokesperson for the airport said the pedestrian, who jumped a perimeter fence, has died. They said the unidentified person was hit two minutes after entering the airport. The person is not believed to be an airport employee.
“We're stopping on the runway,” the pilot tells the control tower according to the site ATC.com. “We just hit somebody. We have an engine fire.”
The pilot tells the air traffic controller they have “231 souls” on board and that an “individual was walking across the runway.”
The air traffic controller responds that they are “rolling the trucks now" before the pilot tells the tower they “have smoke in the aircraft. We are going to evacuate on the runway.”
Frontier Airlines said in a statement flight 4345 was the one involved in the collision and that “smoke was reported in the cabin and the pilots aborted takeoff.” It was not clear whether the smoke was linked to the crash with the pedestrian.
“The Airbus A321 was carrying 224 passengers and seven crew members,” the airline said. “We are investigating this incident and gathering more information in coordination with the airport and other safety authorities.”
Passengers were then evacuated via slides and the emergency crew bused them to the terminal. The airport spokesperson said 12 passengers suffered minor injuries and five were taken to local hospitals.
Denver Airport said the National Transportation Safety Board had been notified and that runway 17L, where the incident took place, will remain closed while an investigation is conducted. It is expected to open later today.
The pedestrian death came a day after a Delta Air Lines employee was killed while on the job at the Orlando International Airport. In a statement, the airline said the employee was killed Thursday night without providing details of the incident nor the name of the employee.
“We are focused on extending our full support to family and taking care of our Orlando team during this difficult time,” the airline said. "We are working with local authorities as a full investigation gets underway to determine what occurred.”
FILE - A Frontier Airlines jetliner taxis down a runway for take off from Denver International airport on Nov. 25, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
