Wells Fargo Fined $67.8 million for Inadequate Oversight by Federal Reserve

By Ned Fielder, The Chicago Times

March 31, 2023

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve Board announced Thursday that it has fined Wells Fargo & Co., of San Francisco, California, $67.8 million for the firm’s “unsafe or unsound practices” relating to historical inadequate oversight of sanctions compliance risks at its subsidiary bank, Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

According to the Fed, Wells Fargo’s deficient oversight allowed the bank to violate US sanctions regulations by providing a trade finance platform to a foreign bank that used the platform to process approximately $532 million in prohibited transactions between 2010 and 2015.

In conjunction with The Fed, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has also imposed a separate penalty on Wells Fargo Bank for these violations bringing the total fines facing Wells Fargo to approximately $97.8 million.