As public and congressional pressure mounted on Wells Fargo & Co. executives, its top two bankers had an explanation Tuesday for allegedly illegal sales practices across the company: It was employees’ fault, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Chief Executive John Stumpf defended the firm and the efforts it had taken to stop the behavior, which included opening accounts for customers without permission. “There was no incentive to do bad things,” Stumpf said. He called the conduct that led to last week’s settlement with federal and local authorities “not acceptable,” adding that the bank doesn’t “want one dime of income that’s not earned properly.” At the same time, the San Francisco bank said that it would soon eliminate the practices at the center of the controversy: branch-level sales goals that encouraged employees to cross-sell products to customers. Last week, Wells Fargo paid a $185 million fine to regulators, including the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, after findings that many accounts were falsified or forced on unsuspecting customers.
