Wells Fargo says U.S. regulator has terminated 2015 consent order

By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Wells Fargo & Co on Thursday said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) terminated a 2015 consent order after the bank compensated customers harmed by its faulty product marketing and billing practices.

The consent order related to billing and marketing practices the bank used when it sold various third-party identity theft protection and debt cancellation products to customers dating as far back as 2004.

The bank was required to make whole customers who had bought the products, which typically involves refunds and compensation if the customer incurred additional related costs.

The bank did not disclose the number of customers affected or the total cost of remediation. It said it stopped selling the products in 2017.

While the OCC’s decision to end the consent order does not have implications for Wells Fargo’s daily operations, it suggests the bank is making progress addressing its legacy regulatory issues, which continue to be an overhang for its share price.

The fourth-largest U.S. bank has been in the regulators’ penalty box and paid billions in fines and restitution since September 2016, when its phony accounts sales scandal first came to light.

Wells remains under a $1.95 trillion asset cap that the Federal Reserve imposed, as well as around a dozen consent orders with regulators.

The bank is still working on a separate 2018 sweeping OCC consent order related to its selling of mortgage and auto-insurance products, which imposes a number of constraints on the bank’s business.

Wells’ Chief Executive Charlie Scharf said last week satisfying the bank’s regulators was a “a multi-year effort.”

(Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Bill Berkrot)