President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that the government may increase planned fines against Wells Fargo & Co., the bank that’s been embroiled in multiple scandals since last year.
“Fines and penalties against Wells Fargo bank for their bad acts against their customers and others will not be dropped,” the president said on his Twitter account.
Mick Mulvaney, picked by Trump to be acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, last month imposed 30-day freezes on regulatory actions and hiring while he conducts a review of the bureau’s operations. Reuters reported Thursday that the CFPB was reviewing whether it should move forward with a possible settlement proposal in which Wells Fargo would pay tens of millions of dollars over wrongly charged mortgage fees.
Trump said in his tweet that the government will pursue penalties against the bank. “If anything,” he said, those would be “substantially increased.”
Fines and penalties against Wells Fargo Bank for their bad acts against their customers and others will not be dropped, as has incorrectly been reported, but will be pursued and, if anything, substantially increased. I will cut Regs but make penalties severe when caught cheating!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 8, 2017
Government regulators, including the CFPB and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, have been scrutinizing the bank for multiple scandals in its consumer business since at least 2016. Wells Fargo paid $185 million in fines and refunds to customers to smooth over government findings that its employees opened millions of accounts without customers’ permission. The bank is also being investigated for charging customers fees to lock in certain rates on mortgage loans and for billing customers for auto insurance they didn’t want or need.
