Wells Fargo CEO steps down from federal bank panel

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

published 22 September 2016

Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf is stepping down from a national bank panel, two days after he was grilled during a Senate Banking Committee hearing regarding his company's recent scandal involving opening fake accounts for customers.

Stumpf resigned as the San Francisco bank district's representative to the Federal Advisory Council, effective Thursday. Council members are appointed for one-year terms that begin in January, and meet four times a year with the Fed's board of governors in Washington, D.C.

Earlier this month, it was announced that Wells Fargo employees opened more than two million phony accounts in order to reach sales targets. The company said it has fired about 5,300 employees, most of them low-level, in connection with the fraud, and was fined $185 million. On Tuesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called Stumpf out for his "gutless leadership" and told him he should "resign" and give back his pay.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.