Wells Fargo Sacks Four Forex Bankers, Opens Internal Probe on Practices

Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), one of the largest banks in the US, has fired four senior FX employees amid an ongoing probe into the bank's illegal practices, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

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The executives were the first terminations disclosed by the banking giant since several managers were dismissed in connection to fraudulent sales practices that resulted in the creation of two million secret bank and credit card accounts.

Wells Fargo spokesperson Jessica Ong told Finance Magnates that she declines to comment on the bank's investigation.

The only statement she made is as follows:

"Please note that the WSJ story contains an error that has been corrected. We did not confirm that anyone was fired – we don’t comment on personnel matters in detail. Therefore we can only confirm that Simon Fowles, Bob Gotelli, Jed Guenther and Michael Schauffler are no longer with the firm. Sara Wardell-Smith has accepted a new position as Americas Regional Leader in Wells Fargo’s Financial Institutions Group. Wells Fargo Securities’ FX business will continue to serve our clients under the leadership of Ben Bonner."

It is not clear if the decision to let the employees go was related to the investigation into FX rate manipulation.

Meanwhile, it emerged separately earlier this week that the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) fined Wells Fargo $3.4 million over charges that it failed to educate and train its sales force about critical aspects of certain complex financial products that it sold to investors.