Female first for US bank

A WOMAN will lead the board of a top American bank for the first time.

Betsy Duke, 65, a former official at the Federal Reserve, has been named chairman of Wells Fargo.

She will replace Stephen Sanger at the end of the year as the company seeks to restore its battered reputation. Long-serving chief executive John Stumpf was forced out after it emerged the bank opened millions of fraudulent accounts to generate fees from customers.

‘Walking into the middle of a crisis is not new to me,’ said Duke, a reference to her arrival at the Federal Reserve as the financial crisis raged in 2008.