Senator Corker Questions Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf in Senate Banking Committee Hearing — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Stump,
2. 0:02thank you for being here. Just as an
3. 0:04observation, um I know that you have a
4. 0:07whole host of people here with you and
5. 0:09I'm sure one of those people is a as a
6. 0:12communications person. I would just make
7. 0:14the observation uh look, I know you talk
8. 0:16daily with board members and you know
9. 0:18been on boards before myself. I would
10. 0:21suggest just uh again as an observation
11. 0:24that to not invoke some degree of
12. 0:26clawback
13. 0:27um for yourself and others involved
14. 0:30would be um committing malpractice um
15. 0:33from the standpoint of just uh public
16. 0:36relations. So at a minimum I'm sure that
17. 0:38is going to take place. I would be
18. 0:40surprised if it doesn't. Um let me just
19. 0:43u you found out about this through
20. 0:46reading the LA Times. Is that correct?
21. 0:50No, I I don't recall back in 13 exactly
22. 0:54uh the time frame, but I learned about
23. 0:56it later in
24. 0:592013. Remember the I'm sorry. So So it
25. 1:04sounds like it really was brought to
26. 1:05your attention uh after a story in in a
27. 1:08newspaper. Well, that's when the focus
28. 1:09really began. I'm not criticizing that.
29. 1:12I'm just asking. I I'm and I only thing
30. 1:14I want to make Senator Corker is that we
31. 1:17had dismissed a number of people and
32. 1:19that's what caused the LA Time the
33. 1:22story. Yeah. So y'all had taken some
34. 1:24actions. They wrote a story and it was
35. 1:26Yes. Your board um you know I know
36. 1:29public boards today, you know, intense
37. 1:31scrutiny. There's all kind of uh
38. 1:33committees that are set up. When did the
39. 1:36board realize that you had a a unit that
40. 1:39was committing fraud? It seems to me
41. 1:40that that's one of those things you flag
42. 1:42pretty quickly or at least a committee
43. 1:43of the board. Yes. And and I just want
44. 1:47to say these team members, you're
45. 1:50absolutely right. They did not do us
46. 1:51right. It was I didn't ask that. I'm
47. 1:54asking you when the board became aware
48. 1:56that you had a unit that was involved in
49. 1:58committing fraud. Yeah. It would have
50. 1:59been later 2013 and then 2014 and on. So
51. 2:04they they weren't even aware of the LA
52. 2:06Times story.
53. 2:07Oh, I I I think that was later in 2013.
54. 2:11I'd have to go back and check my
55. 2:12records, and it's the best to what I
56. 2:14remember, but it was sometime, you know,
57. 2:16later 13, surely in 14. I read a story
58. 2:19about Miss Tolstead today. I don't know
59. 2:21her. Um, actually, you know, sounds like
60. 2:23she was an incredibly hard worker, got
61. 2:25to work early, rode a bus, um, you know,
62. 2:29micromanaged, signed leases herself. I
63. 2:31don't know if any of this was true, but
64. 2:34how do you um when you have somebody
65. 2:36that's that involved in sort of micro
66. 2:38details, um is this a case of not
67. 2:42raising their head up to 5,000 or 10,000
68. 2:45ft and understanding the kind of culture
69. 2:47that was being created by slogans like
70. 2:50eight is great and those kinds of
71. 2:52things. I mean, it's just hard to, you
72. 2:54know, it seems to me that within a bank
73. 2:56with all the data you use to contact
74. 2:58customers and I mean, you you can with
75. 3:02algorithms, I mean, you guys can pick
76. 3:04this stuff up so quickly, it's hard to
77. 3:06believe that there isn't some report
78. 3:09within the bank that would cause cause
79. 3:12this to jump out at people and say
80. 3:15something really bad is happening here.
81. 3:17Yeah, Senator Cooker, I think that is
82. 3:19that's a good question. And in a retail
83. 3:23business, uh, where you have a 100,000
84. 3:26people in seats at any one time in our
85. 3:306,200 branches, there is a lot of
86. 3:34turnover. And I'm not justifying in No,
87. 3:37no, no, but but there there's an
88. 3:40officer. There's a compliance officer.
89. 3:42Absolutely. And and all banks have
90. 3:45these. I mean, y'all are regulated to
91. 3:47death and that's their job. And this
92. 3:49kind of this is something that I you
93. 3:50would think would be flagged and jump
94. 3:53out at someone who was in that job. I
95. 3:55was and thank you. And that's what I was
96. 3:57trying to explain that that in her
97. 4:00business surely she was I
98. 4:04believe and reporting situations where
99. 4:07there was ethical breakdowns and but not
100. 4:11to the board and it it got to the board
101. 4:14level. It got to the corporate level in
102. 4:172013 because progress was not being made
103. 4:20and the board level in 14 as the
104. 4:22corporate resources started to and we've
105. 4:24been actually seeing improvement since
106. 4:26that time. It does seem like there was
107. 4:27just in fairness again there does seem
108. 4:30like a big disconnect there. Um so she
109. 4:33left uh after 27 years and I think it
110. 4:36would be good for the audience at some
111. 4:38point not during my time to explain the
112. 4:39the entire compensation. And I think
113. 4:41it's a little different than than most
114. 4:43people think based on some of the
115. 4:45comments that have been made. But I
116. 4:47assume her departure after 27 years was
117. 4:50based on this issue. Is that correct? It
118. 4:52was based on a number of issues. This
119. 4:54was one of them. We wanted to take the
120. 4:55business in a different direction and we
121. 4:58al So she in essence was terminated over
122. 5:00this issue. Uh no Carrie chose to
123. 5:03retire. Tim Sloan our chief operating
124. 5:06officer with my consultation had a
125. 5:08discussion with her. I think it was
126. 5:10sometime in June or July and said we
127. 5:14want to go in a different direction. We
128. 5:15want to put an end. We want to put more
129. 5:18focus on this issue. But it was a
130. 5:19variety of things and she was eligible
131. 5:22eligible for retirement and she decided
132. 5:24to retire. Well, my time is up and out
133. 5:27of respect for other members, I will
134. 5:28stop. I have numbers of other questions.
135. 5:30Uh we thank you for being here. Thank
136. 5:32you.