The daily business briefing: September 9, 2016

Wells Fargo to pay $185 million over unwanted accounts, Airbnb steps up anti-discrimination measures, and more

The Airbnb logo on an iPhone.
(Image credit: Carl Court/Getty Images)

1. Wells Fargo fined $185 million over illegally opened accounts

Federal regulators said Thursday that Wells Fargo & Co. would pay $185 million to settle complaints that bank workers opened deposit and credit-card accounts without customers' approval to meet sales targets. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the bank opened more than 2 million such accounts. Wells Fargo fired 5,300 employees over the bogus sales. The CFPB's $100 million portion of the payments will be its largest fine ever. The rest of the money will go to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Los Angeles city attorney. The San Francisco-based bank will pay back customers for any fees associated with the accounts.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.