by Howard Haykin

Wells Fargo Fires District Managers.    On Wednesday, while the country mourned the passing of George H.W. Bush, The Wall Street Journal announced that Wells Fargo had fired some 3 dozen district managers. The terminated district managers, who typically oversee 5 to 15 retail bank branches, had been retained even as Wells Fargo terminated 5,300 underlings (employees) for having opened up millions of fake accounts in order to meet outsized sales goals. [For further details, click on WallStreetJournal (subsc reqd).]

And … Wells Fargo Reform Plan Rejected by The Fed.    Late Wednesday, we learned that the Federal Reserve rejected in April 2018 Wells Fargo’s plan for improving its governance and risk management controls. The reform plan, which followed the bank's February settlement with the Fed, was required to include steps by Wells Fargo to toughen board oversight, repay customers hurt by past abuses, and make more than 20 other improvements to its governance, risk management and compliance controls.

However, over the past 9 months, Wells Fargo has haggled with the Fed officials over what specific controls are needed to ensure that the bank can detect problems before they become full-blown scandals - differences that are still not resolved. In the mearime, Wells Fargo is subject to a cap on its assets level. [For further details, click on Reuters.]