Wells Fargo fined $98 million for violating US sanctions

US bank Wells Fargo agreed on Thursday to pay a nearly $98 million fine to US authorities for allegedly violating its sanctions against Iran, Syria and Sudan.

The fine is the result of adding the sanction of the Federal Reserve (US$ 67.8 million) and the one imposed by the Office of Financial Assets Control of the Treasury Department (US$ 30 million), according to a joint statement from both entities.

Authorities accused Wells Fargo of carrying a “inadequate supervision” that allowed a subsidiary to violate US sanctions by providing a financial platform to a foreign bank that, in turn, processed $532 million worth of prohibited transactions between 2010 and 2015.

In a separate note, the Treasury Department detailed that Wells Fargo and its predecessor, Wachovia -which it acquired in 2008- supplied a European bank with that softwarewhich was used to process 124 transactions with sanctioned jurisdictions and persons.

This is another bad news for the entity, which last year had to pay more than 3.700 million to the United States Office of Consumer Financial Protection in fines and refunds to clients to resolve a series of complaints for alleged malpractices and abuses. to the consumer.

Wells Fargothe fourth largest bank by assets in the United States, has received repeated sanctions for abusing consumers since it emerged in 2016 that it had opened millions of accounts illegally, a practice that many employees used to meet the goals set for them by the bank. bank.

That scandal led to the fed to limit the expansion of the entity after verifying a “pervasive and persistent misbehavior”, and its new executive, led by charlie scharf Since 2019, he has been trying to straighten out the company’s accounts and resolve pending issues.

After the news broke, the shares of Wells Fargo they were down 1.82% on Wall Street. The listed company, with a capitalization of US$ 144,000 million, has lost 23% of its value in the last year.

Source: EFE