Washington DC—Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley today demanded accountability and answers from Wells Fargo at a Senate Banking Committee hearing investigating the recent revelations that the bank had illegally created millions of bank and credit card accounts without customers’ knowledge.
Merkley told CEO John Stumpf, “All these people were fired because of the culture you established. This was a systemic problem that you benefitted from enormously, the bank benefitted from enormously, and you are scapegoating the people at the very bottom. You can only blame them for ethical lapses; you never disclosed you had a systemic problem. Accepting full responsibility for establishing a culture that put people in an impossible situation would be to resign, return your funds and help fund assistance for fired employees.”
Watch Senator Merkley question Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf at today’s Senate Banking Committee hearing aquí.