Michael P. Regan, Columnist

Eight Rhymes With Separate for Wells Fargo

CEO John Stumpf makes it look as if his bank is too big to manage.

September 20, 2016 at 5:05 PM UTC

Michael P. Regan is the global team leader for cryptocurrencies at Bloomberg as well as a former senior markets editor and former Americas team leader for Bloomberg's Markets Live blog. He has covered Wall Street for Bloomberg News as a columnist and editor since 2007. He previously worked for the Associated Press.

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Wells Fargo executives appear to have a battle plan when it comes to defending themselves from the outcry of criticism over the fake-accounts scandal that has rocked the bank.

The problem with their battle plan? It's severely undermining their strength when it comes to fighting a larger war: the conflict over whether giant universal banks like Wells Fargo are not just too big to fail, but also simply too big to manage effectively. And, ultimately, whether they're too big to exist in their current bloated states.

Wells Fargo's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf took center stage on Tuesday, not only at a hearing by the Senate Banking Committee, where firebrand Senator Elizabeth Warren called for him to resign and face a criminal investigation, but also on Hillary Clinton's enemies' list.

"We need to make sure that no financial institution is too big to manage," Clinton wrote on her website. "I’ll put additional safeguards in place to address the risks that the big banks continue to pose to our system. And if any bank can’t be managed effectively, it should be broken up."