WaMu Hawaii Trips Drove Risk as Regulator Failed, Report Says
This article is for subscribers only.
Washington Mutual Inc., once the largest U.S. thrift, rewarded bankers for overcharging customers on subprime mortgages and selling the worst-performing loans to investors, a U.S. Senate panel concluded.
The lender gave its top producers free trips to places like Hawaii and the Bahamas in return for increasing mortgage volume, even as performance of the loans deteriorated, according to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on the financial crisis.