Wells Fargo CEO promises outage review as delays persist
Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan on Friday apologized to customers as it seeks to fully resolve an issue that disrupted activities on its mobile app, website, credit cards and at ATMs, promising to fully review its systems.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WFC | WELLS FARGO & CO. | 75.28 | -0.89 | -1.17% |
“While we restored operations throughout the day and continue to address customer concerns, our recovery from these issues was not as rapid as we or our customers would have expected,” Sloan said in a statement. “We will review the system issues in detail, and do all we can to ensure that this type of disruption doesn’t happen again.”
Earlier on Friday, Wells Fargo told FOX Business in a statement that the systems were up and running but customers may experience some delays. Some other features, like consumer credit card and mortgage balances, may also still be unavailable. However, the bank assured customers it is safe to make purchases using its credit and debit cards.
The problem escalted on Thursday after a power issue at a data center in Minnesota resulted in mobile app and website outages for customers, in addition to ATM and credit card troubles.
The San Francisco-based bank said the issues were caused by an automatic power shutdown at one of its main data-center facilities—which was triggered by a smoke condition from routine building maintenance. Wells Fargo said most “critical” systems had recovered by the end of the day on Thursday.
It added that any fees incurred as a result of the issue would be reversed. For customers that made transactions were not visible online or at ATMs Thursday or Friday, the bank assured customers those transactions were processed normally and should have been visible by Friday evening.
In an effort to address ongoing problems, the bank is expanding hours at all 5,500 branches Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in addition to providing additional staff at contact centers.
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Wells Fargo is no stranger to controversy. The scandal-ridden bank agreed to pay a $185 million fine in 2016 after it was revealed that employees were creating fraudulent accounts for customers without their approval. Since then, similair problems have been uncovered across many of its major businesses. In April of 2018 it was slapped with a $1 billion fine by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau tied to auto loan and mortgage practices.