More than two years after a scandal involving the creation of fake bake accounts, Wells Fargo is firing about three dozen managers for failed oversight, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The move is an attempt to reassure regulators that the financial institution has fixed the problems that boiled to the surface in September 2016, according to the paper.
In order to hit sales targets and receive bonuses, Wells Fargo Employees were discovered to have signed customers up for fake accounts. The fraudulent activity—which was later discovered to have tallied up to some 3.5 million accounts—led to $185 million in fines, various investigations, and unprecedented sanctions by the Federal Reserve.
Though the company previously fired about 5,300 employees related to the illegal activity, the Wall Street Journal reports that the recent firings are the first to affect the regional level of district managers, who are in charge of up to 15 branches.
Senior Executive Vice President Mary Mack, whom the WSJ reported has relayed news of the firings to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, took the job of leading the consumer banking and lending department three weeks before the news broke.
In the wake of the scandal, Mack said she has taken actions to mitigate the problem, alleviate concerns and build trust, including changing the employee compensation plan and visiting Wells Fargo branches to talk about what happened.
Neither a Wells Fargo spokeswoman nor an OCC spokesman provided a comment to the newspaper.
The scandal is just one of many the financial institution is dealing with, including one that may have caused the accidental foreclosure of hundreds of homes.
