Gillian Tan, Columnist

Wells Fargo's Settlement Is Small Change

It's looking increasingly likely that the bank's bottom line will emerge relatively unscathed.

March 29, 2017 at 3:53 PM UTC

Gillian Tan is a senior reporter covering finance and alternative asset classes including real estate, infrastructure, private equity, private credit, venture capital and sports business. She previously wrote an opinion column for Bloomberg and was a reporter at the Wall Street Journal. She is a qualified chartered accountant.

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Wells Fargo & Co.'s CEO Tim Sloan is earning his keep.

Late Tuesday, the bank reached a $110 million settlement over claims that its employees opened more than 2 million accounts without permission from customers. Sloan made the right call: In order to move past the scandal and as part of the settlement, Wells Fargo relented on its efforts to keep customers out of court. Its focus on settling claims by arbitration had received legislative backlash and could have prolonged and enhanced the damage to its reputation.