🔰Senator Elizabeth Warren questions Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf at Banking Committee Hearing

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Stumpf, the Wells Fargo Vision and Values Statement, which you frequently cite, says, quote, we believe in values lived, not phrases memorized. If you want to find out how strong a company's ethics are, don't listen to what its people say, watch what they do. So let's do that. Since this massive, years-long scam came to light, you have said repeatedly, quote, I am accountable. But what have you actually done to hold yourself accountable? Have you resigned as CEO or chairman of Wells Fargo? The board, I serve at the- Have you resigned? No, I've not. All right. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on? Well, first of all, this was by 1% of our people, and- That's not my question. My question, this is about responsibility. Have you returned one nickel of the millions of dollars that you were paid while this scam was going on? The board will take care of that. Have you returned one nickel of the money you earned while this scam was going on? And the board will do- I will take that as a no, then. Have you fired a single senior executive? And by that, I don't mean a regional manager or a branch manager. I'm asking about the people who actually led your community banking division or your compliance division. We've made a change to lead our regional bank. I just said, I'm not asking about regional managers. I'm not asking about branch managers. I'm asking if you have fired senior management, the people who actually led community banking division, who oversaw this fraud, or the compliance division that was in charge of making sure that the bank complied with the law. Kerry Toll said- Did you fire any of those people? No. Okay. So you haven't resigned. You haven't returned a single nickel of your personal earnings. You haven't fired a single senior executive. Instead, evidently, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don't have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend themselves. It's gutless leadership. In your time as chairman and CEO, Wells has been famous for cross-selling, which is pushing existing customers to open more accounts. Cross-selling is one of the main reasons that Wells has become the most valuable bank in the world. Wells measures cross-selling by the number of different accounts a customer has with Wells. Other big banks average fewer than three accounts per customer, but you set the target at eight accounts. Every customer of Wells should have eight accounts with the bank, and that's not because you ran the numbers and found that the average customer needed eight banking accounts. It is because, quote, eight rhymes with great. This was your rationale right there in your 2010 annual report. Cross-selling isn't about helping customers get what they need. If it was, you wouldn't have to squeeze your employees so hard to make it happen. No, cross-selling is all about pumping up Wells' stock price, isn't it? No, cross-selling is shorthand for deepening relationships. We only do well... Let me stop you right there. You say no? No? I'm... Here are the transcripts of 12 quarterly earnings calls that you participated in from 2012 to 2014, the three full years in which we know this scam was going on. I'd like to submit them for the record, if I may, Mr. Chair. Thank you. These are calls where you personally made your pitch to investors and analysts about why Wells Fargo is a great investment, and in all 12 of these calls, you personally cited Wells Fargo's success at cross-selling retail accounts as one of the main reasons to buy more stock in the company. Let me read you a few quotes that you had. April 2012, quote, we grew our retail banking cross-sell ratio to a record 5.98 products per household. A year later, April 2013, quote, we achieved record retail banking cross-sell of 6.1 products per household. April 2014, quote, we achieved record retail banking cross-sell of 6.17 products per household. The ratio kept going up and up, and it didn't matter whether customers used those accounts or not. And guess what? Wall Street loved it. Here is just a sample of the reports from top analysts in those years, all recommending that people buy Wells Fargo stock in part because of the strong cross-sell numbers. And I'd like to submit them for the record. No objections. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So when investors saw good cross-sell numbers, they did while this scam was going on. That was very good for you personally, wasn't it, Mr. Stumpf? Do you know how much money, how much value your stock holdings in Wells Fargo gained while this scam was underway? Well, first of all, it was not a scam. And cross-sell is a way of deepening relationships. We've been through this, Mr. Stumpf. I asked you a very simple question. Do you know how much the value of your stock went up while this scam was going on? It's all of my compensation is in our public filing. Do you know how much it was? It's all in the public filing. You're right, it is all in the public records because I looked it up. While this scam was going on, you personally held an average of 6.75 million shares of Wells stock. The share price during this time period went up by about $30, which comes out to more than $200 million in gains, all for you personally. And thanks in part to those cross-sell numbers that you talked about on every one of those calls. You know, here's what really gets me about this, Mr. Stumpf. If one of your tellers took a handful of $20 bills out of the cash drawer, they'd probably be looking at criminal charges for theft. They could end up in prison. But you squeezed your employees to the breaking point so they would cheat customers and you could drive up the value of your stock and put hundreds of millions of dollars in your own pocket. And when it all blew up, you kept your job, you kept your multi-million dollar bonuses, and you went on television to blame thousands of $12-an-hour employees who were just trying to meet cross-sell quotas that made you rich. This is about accountability. You should resign. You should give back the money that you took while this scam was going on, and you should be criminally investigated by both the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. You know, this just isn't right. A cashier who steals a handful of $20s is held accountable, but Wall Street executives who almost never hold themselves accountable. Not now and not in 2008 when they crushed the worldwide economy. The only way that Wall Street will change is if executives face jail time when they preside over massive frauds. We need tough new laws to hold corporate executives personally accountable, and we need tough prosecutors who have the courage to go after people at the top. Until then, it will be business as usual. And at giant banks like Wells Fargo, that seems to mean cheating as many customers, investors, and employees as they possibly can. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Strumpf, as you know, some of my colleagues and I sent you a letter last week about the board's plans to claw back compensation from senior executives who were responsible for overseeing this scam. Wells Fargo provided us with a response yesterday. I noticed that although we sent the letter to you, that the response actually came from somebody else in the company, which I guess is another example of holding yourself accountable. I want to focus now on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Carrie Tolstead's retirement in July. As you know, Ms. Tolstead ran the Community Banking Division, the division where this scam occurred, for the entire time that the scam took place. She was in charge of all of the 5,300 employees who were fired, and she oversaw the creation of 2 million fake accounts. Now, in July of this year, just two months before the settlement was announced, and before those facts became public, Ms. Tolstead retired at age 56. You indicated in the letter, responding to our letter, that she walks away with over $90 million in stock, stock options, and awards. Fortune Magazine says it's actually about $125 million, but, and here's the key part, according to Fortune, if Ms. Tolstead had been fired instead of retiring, she would have had to forfeit as much as $45 million of that award. Mr. Stumpf, the response to our letter confirms that you knew of this scandal before Ms. Tolstead retired. It said, and this is from your letter, quote, senior management and the board were aware of the pending litigation, investigation, and discussions with our regulators relating to sales practices when Ms. Tolstead indicated her decision to retire. Is that accurate, Mr. Stumpf, what this letter says? Were you personally aware of the massive problem that occurred under Ms. Tolstead's watch in July when she announced her retirement? I was aware that we were involved in discussions with the city attorney, the OCC, and the CFPB, yes. So you had some indication there was a massive problem? We had some indication that we had 1% of our people who were doing the wrong thing. Also known as a massive problem. If you knew this, did you consider firing Ms. Tolstead before she retired? Well, at the time, she was reporting to our president and chief operating officer, and It's a simple question. You knew there was a problem, did you consider firing her? No, because of her full Seriously? You found out that one of your divisions had created 2 million fake accounts, had fired thousands of employees for improper behavior, and had cheated thousands of your own customers, and you didn't even once consider firing her ahead of her retirement? In fact, when I look at her full body of work, and I look at the customer loyalty improvement and the customer service improvement Are you sure that those were not fake? All the work that was done, she chose to retire, and I'd also like to make one other comment, because you made the So you, no, just on this, you never considered firing her. So now, Ms. Tolstead has apparently retired, but is also staying with the firm through the end of the year. And in the response to our letter, you state, or the person writing it states, quote, Ms. Tolstead is eligible to be considered for a 2016 annual incentive award. An incentive award for doing a great job in 2016? Mr. Stump, that is unbelievable. You are the chairman of the board and the CEO. In those roles, do you think it would be appropriate for Ms. Tolstead to get another bonus on top of the millions that she has already gotten as a reward for her role in this massive scam? The board will consider that. I don't want to prejudice the board, but I also want to make one comment. I don't understand that answer. You know, you and your board have already made changes. You've made changes to the compensation scheme for thousands of employees. You've sat here today and talked about that. You've removed sales quotas, I think you told us. You've reformed incentives. Why can that be done quick as a wink across the entire bank? But a question about cutting compensation for a highly placed executive who oversaw a massive fraud takes long deliberation? Why is that? Because there's a board governance process and we want that to work properly. And whether Carrie was retired or she was fired, there'd be no difference with respect to how the board can deal with that. I'm sorry, if she was fired, it is my understanding she would not be entitled to large parts of her compensation. It's not just a clawback issue. We're talking about she doesn't get them to begin with if she gets fired, but you let her walk out of the door with a retirement. I don't quite understand. How do you explain this to your own shareholders? There is a process that the board goes through and they will do that. I don't understand. You keep saying there's, you know, the board, the board, as if these are strangers that you met in a dark alley under the bylaws of Wells Fargo. And I'm quoting here, the chairman shall preside at all meetings of the board. You were able to make changes. Why can you not make a change here? I'm not on the Human Resources Committee of the board. They have their own governance and structure. We want that to proceed in the process in which we have. All right. So, so we'll do this your way. Our letter asked a number of questions about clawbacks of Ms. Tolstead's and other executives' pay, including yours. Wells Fargo's answer to our letter was just basically you punted that the decision would be up to the board. The same punt you've given here. So you're the chairman of the board. Let me ask it this way. Will you personally support clawing back all or part of Ms. Tolstead's pay? I'm not going to in any way try to influence or prejudice the board as they do their deliberation. So you have absolutely no opinion on this? I'm not going to opine on that. You're not going to opine? You're going to say, get out there, defraud, cheat, lie, steal. And I have nothing to say about whether or not you ought to still be getting your bonus. I've never said, and we never say as our company, go out there and do any of those things. We try to do the right thing every day. But you say if you do them, you can count on Chairman Stumpf not to stand up and say you shouldn't get your incentive bonus. The board has a process. I think you started this whole thing by saying, don't tell me what you say. Tell me what your actions are. Am I? And your actions are, people do this, and you're not going to take a single step to shut it down. So I guess I can ask this question again. Will you personally support clawing back any or all of the pay for the person in charge of compliance? Someone we haven't talked about much today. The person who is supposed to be responsible to make sure that the bank is following the law. Will you have any recommendation about that person? I'm going to have the board do their process. You are going to have no recommendation at all, ever, at any point in this process? Whatever the board accepts, and whatever they do, I will accept and I will support. You are not passive here. If you have nothing to do, then what are you doing serving as chairman of the board? If you have no opinions on the most massive fraud that has hit this bank since the beginning of time, how can it be that you actually get to continue to collect a paycheck for being chairman of the board? Well, first of all, I disagree with the fact this is a massive fraud. But secondly, the board will do their work, and I'm not going to prejudice their work. And I will accept whatever they come up with, and I will be supportive. You accepted all along, as this fraud built up, this massive fraud, you accepted all of the performance bonuses based on the cross-selling that is at the heart of this. You watched your own stock go up by more than $200 million, based in part on exactly this massive fraud. You got out and you pumped it to Wall Street, and you said to Wall Street, hey, we are doing such a great job cross-selling here at Wells Fargo, you should tell everybody to buy our stock. And now you turn around and say, I shall remain passive and simply accept what Wells Fargo wants to do. You know, in 2008, Wall Street promised change. But it looks like it is business as usual. A giant bank cheats the little guys, and the executives line their own pockets. Mr. Stumpf, you make it clear that Wall Street won't change until we make it change. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.