Wells Fargo : An International Banking Company Essay

The first responsibility is economic, in other words, be profitable. Followed by legal, which states to do everything by the law. then ethical, meaning doing the right thing. Lastly discretionary, to be good to the community. Wells Fargo’s responsibility towards its board of directors is to be legal and ethical. When a company acts unethically or illegally, the board of directors is the stakeholder who initially should explain the crisis to the media, government, and those affected. Towards stockholders, Wells Fargo has economical social responsibility. Their responsibility is to be profitable. Wells Fargo has a legal, ethical and economic responsibility to their employees. Finally, towards customers, Wells Fargo has ethical and legal responsibility.

Dubbing itself “the nation’s leading originator of home loans to ethnic minority customers.” (Coates X) Well Fargo intentions was simple, it was to make black people believe that what their bank is doing is for them but really all it really matter was taking all of their money by telling the blacks that they are going to educate them about “generational wealth”. Soon after Wells Fargo would pay back for what they have been doing for the past 5 years, “In 2010, the Justice Department filed a discrimination suit against Wells Fargo alleging that the bank had shunted blacks into predatory loans regardless of their creditworthiness.” (Coates X) While this may seem to be a win for the black community the damage was already done “In 2009, half the properties in Baltimore whose owners had been granted loans by Wells Fargo between 2005 and 2008 were

Wells Fargo is an American multinational diversified financial services company. The company operates throughout the world. It is one of the largest banks in the US in the state of assets. Moreover, Wells Fargo is the largest market capitalization bank in the US. It takes the second category in the field of deposits, delivery of home mortgage services, and delivery of credit cards. The company has its headquarters in Francisco, California. The company has coverage of more than twenty-four states in the US. In every state, it has established its headquarters that act as distribution and storage regions for the company's products and services. The company offers insurance, banking, mortgage, and consumer financing through the sale and distribution of its networks across the US. The advantages of Wells Fargo Company are widely distributed: they have helped it realize a stable market in the United States and around the globe.

Wells Fargo has been penalized and has been fined 185 million dollars because they were opening fake accounts.

Recently, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for opening up nearly 2 million accounts without permission of the account owners. The pressure to raise the average number of accounts began as early as 2009, employees who did not meet the sales targets were fired. Wells Fargo overlooked the fraud committed in order to meet those numbers. Since the exposure, Wells Fargo has fired roughly 5,300 employees. Though the effects on Wells Fargo go beyond the fine, this example shows how large banks and businesses are able to commit crimes without any real punishment. The Wells Fargo scheme was explicitly illegal, yet there are many business practices that, though unethical, are legal.

Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the nation. It is a multinational company and it is recognized by its high revenue value. Unfortunately, Bank of America has endured many complaints and harsh views regarding their lack of ethics. Ethical issues occur when there is a blatant disregard to implement integrity, trust, and responsibility. In some financial institutions, ethical matters are displayed in the way the consumers are treated. Within the past nine years, Bank of America has diminished all of their ethical promises by revealing customer information without their permission; discriminating against consumers based on their race; and manipulating overdraft fees in order to benefit the bank. In order to assess these problems, it is vital to recognize what Bank of America claims to stand for and determine where their most concerning issues are generated from.

On September 8 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFBP) announced that it was taking an enforcement action against Wells Fargo Bank . Wells Fargo is a Fortune 100 company and one of the "Big Four Banks" of the United States. Investigations conducted by the Bureau revealed that employees of the bank created unauthorized deposit and credit card accounts across the country to meet sales goals. Over the years, the bank’s employees opened over 1.5 million fraudulent bank accounts and 0.5 million fake credit card accounts for customers, to meet sales targets and obtain bonuses. The affected consumers, were being harmed by the associated charges and fees for these accounts. The fees include insufficient funds or overdraft fees for the deposit accounts and annual fees for credit card accounts.

The first stated values, states that Wells Fargo’s value open, honest and two communication, which did open a hotline dealing after the scandal and handle the customer service. Though, I would not consider that company honest, but maybe openness after the fact. The second state values is based on accountable and proud of their conduct and decision dealing with Wells Fargo’s. Though, Wells Fargo is unethical in it business practices still used well known business practices and process to motivate salespeople open multiple accounts without the customer permission. Such as training employee in techniques into frauding customers and a system of rewarding for such behavior. Which shows a totally disregard for the customer financial well being

In 2016, federal regulators caught Wells Fargo creating millions of fake bank and credit card accounts; over 1.5 million bank accounts were created. Furthermore, federal regulators also said that 565,443 credit cards were created, and 1400 of those accounts had been charged over 400,000 dollars in fees. Wells Fargo employees broke many ethical and legal boundaries and engaged in counterproductive work behavior.

Until the intent or motive is recognized, a problem cannot be described or solved. This should be a major question to ask in the Wells Fargo case. Most workers, especially in sales and marketing jobs are known to be compensated and promoted based on their performances (number of products and services sold, number of set targets met). So it is possible that Wells Fargo compensation and promotion structure motivated these employees to engage in such fraudulent acts in order to boost their incentives and bonuses which was measured based on their performance. Because it is surprising that such huge number of employees would engage in such acts to cheat customers for a period of five years. Both former and current Wells Fargo employees told regulators that their motivation to open unauthorized accounts was because of the compensation policies and felt extreme pressure to do that to benefit from such policies (Corkery

The ethics of the bank requires that there is ethics of integrity. It is supposed to be created through a culture in the bank and it should be one of the banks priorities because this is a business and they gain the profits from the people they serve on daily basis. Even if the bank shall survive this wave of scandal is so difficult now to convince any client to join this Wells Fargo which shall cause them a lot of money. Also all the old customers may start withdrawing and looking for other banks which they feel are more secure when they are keeping the money for them. It is so hurting and distrustful for a banking instead of accruing money in the accounts of their customers what they wells was doing was that it was misusing their money and giving them extra fees.

In September of 2016, it was revealed that there was alleged misconduct at one of the largest and safest banking institutions in the United States. Wells Fargo Bank was ranked among the nation’s safest financial institutions according to an analysis done by Global Financial, (Inside Tucson Business, 2009). Alleging that between May 2011 and July 2015, there were more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards opened for customers without their knowledge or permission (Blake, 2016). Clients started complaining the they were receiving debit/credit cards from the bank that they had not ordered. Wells Fargo employees also started complaining that about the unethical behaviors they witnessed or were asked to participate in to the Human Resource Departments, the bank’s internal ethics hotline, branch’s individual managers and supervisors. All which led to the discovery of the fraud scandal.

Wells Fargo founded in 1852 is known for being a financial services company. Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investment, mortgage, and consumer and commercial financial services through more than 8,600 locations, 13,000 ATM’s, online, and mobile devices. Wells Fargo is headquartered in San Francisco, California but has a vision of being decentralized from that location. Being decentralized allows each location to act as a headquarters to provide their customers with specific financial services. Wells Fargo employs approximately 268,000 employees to serve 70 million customers.

Thirdly, they should place new plans. If Wells Fargo wants to promote itself again, it should come up with new plans and more strict policies so that the new customers would feel safe and comfortable. Well Fargo should also offer more benefits than its competitors in order to attract more customers. It should also be more careful this time and not let anything like the scandal take place again, because it would be a disaster for the company people won’t trust them again.

The reason why Well Fargo Bank is an ethical quandary would be how they have gotten a fine for 185 Million dollars and have fired over 5,300 which were employee and manager.