Wells Fargo still feeling fallout from scandal

Signups for checking accounts, credit cards plunge in January

SAN FRANCISCO — Fewer customers opened checking accounts at Wells Fargo in January and more closed checking accounts, an indication that the embattled financial behemoth still faces challenges arising from a scandal linked to bogus accounts at the bank, the company reported Friday.

During January compared with the same month the year before, 200,000 fewer checking accounts were opened, a decline of 31 percent; and customer-initiated closures of checking accounts rose 4 percent.

Bank customers also have steered away from the bank’s credit-card products. New customer credit-card applications plummeted 47 percent in January compared to the year-before January. Customers conducted 200,000 fewer credit-card applications on a year-to-year basis.

“After factoring in day count differences and typical seasonality, trends were relatively stable in January and within our expectations,” said Mary Mack, head of community banking at Wells Fargo.

Total bank interactions fell 4 percent in January compared with the year before.

San Francisco-based Wells Fargo has wrestled in recent months with customer skepticism, investigations, regulatory penalties and fines after the bank and federal officials revealed last September bank employees had opened up to 2 million bogus accounts without the permission of customers.

The bank fired 5,300 employees, and eventually John Stumpf, CEO during the time when the fraudulent activity occurred, resigned.

“We remain focused on meeting our customers’ financial needs by providing great service and quality products, and we’re pleased that our customer experience survey scores increased for the third consecutive month,” said Timothy Sloan, Wells Fargo’s CEO.