Wells Fargo CEO in hot seat on Capitol Hill

Wells Fargo’s CEO Timothy Sloan is expected to testify solo in front of the House Financial Services Committee prior to a broader hearing with top executives from several other Wall Street banks set for a later date.

The hearing, Holding Megabanks Accountable: An Examination of Wells Fargo's Pattern of Consumer Abuses, will likely have Sloan answering tough questions about the bank's long list of predatory consumer practices and record fines, particularly from Democratic freshman members like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York who are highly critical of Wall Street banks.

In December, Wells Fargo agreed to pay $575 million to resolve claims of millions of phony accounts across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The bank also said last year it would pay nearly $2.1 billion to settle allegations from the Department of Justice that it misrepresented the quality of mortgage loans, as well as $1 billion over claims it sold some customers unnecessary auto insurance.

Sloan could also face questions over the recent outage earlier this year that impacted customers’ ability to access mobile banking, ATMs and credit cards.

The hearing – which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal and covered by FOX Business – is slated to be the first public foray by Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., into oversight of the nation's largest financial institutions.

The CEOs of several large banks – including JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs Group – are also expected to testify in front of the financial services panel as early as April, sources say.

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Waters, along with House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, recently sent an initial request for information to Deutsche Bank, the first step in what is expected to be an investigation into past loans the German lender made to President Trump and his businesses.

This article was originally published on 2-19-19 and updated on 3-11-19.