[Photo: Big Short Movie - Christian Bale is Michael Burry, founder of Scion Capital and one of the

first people to predict the coming credit crisis;  photo credit: Jaap Buitendiijk / Paramount]

Wells Fargo has largely been disassociated from the 2008 credit crisis. So, it's somewhat surprising that we learn of this settlement over toxic mortgage-backed securities.

Wells Fargo has reached a settlement tied to bad real-estate loans that officials at Residential Capital claim helped push the subprime mortgage lender into bankruptcy – terms were not made public. The settlement with the trust overseeing ResCap’s liquidation punctuates a forgettable 2016 for Wells Fargo, which has suffered through a scandal around its creation of bogus customer accounts and new regulatory sanctions over the rejection of its so-called living will.

“The big banks continue to ‘fess up to the errors of the mortgage crisis,” said Andrew Gadlin, a research analyst with broker-dealer Odeon Capital Group.

On Thursday and Friday, the federal government struck multibillion-dollar settlements with Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse over mortgage-backed securities (MBS’s) that turned toxic in the subprime crash and filed a separate fraud lawsuit against Barclays Bank.

ResCap, once one of the country’s largest subprime mortgage lenders, filed for chapter 11 protection in May 2012 as litigation over soured mortgage securities mounted and bond payments loomed. The bankruptcy was intended to help auto lender Ally Financial Inc., Rescap’s former parent, to sever its ties to the mortgage lender so it could focus on repaying the bailout it received during the financial crisis.