Sources: Wells Fargo faces huge fine

WASHINGTON — Wells Fargo & Co. could be fined several hundred million dollars by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the bank’s mortgage-lending and auto-insurance practices, sources said.

The agency is in talks with the San Francisco-based bank over penalties for the problems, Reuters reported Monday, citing two unidentified people with knowledge of the discussions. Mick Mulvaney, the agency’s acting director, is pushing for fines as large as $1 billion, Reuters said.

An agency spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.

Mulvaney, also the White House budget director, has been critical of how aggressively the agency was run under President Barack Obama’s administration. But the large fines would align with President Donald Trump’s statement in December that Wells Fargo would face stiff penalties for charging fees to certain homebuyers to secure low mortgage rates. Trump said on Twitter that regulators would “make penalties severe” when companies are “caught cheating.”

In 2016, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $185 million to settle investigations by the agency, the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer into the creation of millions of unauthorized accounts.

Wells Fargo also has been accused of forcing auto-loan customers into unneeded insurance policies and charging improper fees to some mortgage borrowers.

— The Los Angeles Times