WASHINGTON–Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is demanding that Wells Fargo & Co. be kicked off college campuses across the country.
Warren, who is widely expected to run for president in 2020, said she has requested more information from Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan and from 31 colleges where the bank currently has a presence. The inquiry follows a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report said that Wells Fargo charged students the highest fees of 573 banks examined, reported Bloomberg.
“When granted the privilege of providing financial services to students through colleges, Wells Fargo used this access to charge struggling college students exorbitant fees,” Warren said in a statement. “These high fees, which are an outlier within the industry, demonstrate conclusively that Wells Fargo does not belong on college campuses.”
As Bloomberg noted, Warren has been a vocal critic of Wells Fargo -- including repeatedly calling for Sloan’s ouster -- since a series of scandals at the bank were first discovered several years ago.
In response to Warren’s statement, Wells Fargo issued a statement that it is “continually working to improve how we serve our customers,” a bank spokesman said in an emailed statement Thursday. “Before and since the CFPB’s review on this topic, we have been pursuing customer-friendly actions that support students,” including waiving service fees on some checking accounts offered to them.