SAN FRANCISCO—Wells Fargo’s latest customer activity data reveals a 27% decline in new account openings from September to October of this year, and a dramatic 44% decrease compared to year-ago levels.
“This was largely due to the fake account scandal that came to light,” said Bill Hardekopf, CEO of LowCards.com.
Applications for consumer credit cards were also down, 35% from September to October and 50% versus a year ago. Branch banker interactions were down 11% for the month and 22% for the year.
“But Wells Fargo contributes that to an increase in mobile banking activity. Total digital sessions were up 7% from last year,” Hardekopf said. “Customer loyalty and overall branch satisfaction did drop slightly from September to October, but not as much as one might expect after the scandal.”
Debit card point-of-sale transactions actually increased from $658.3 million in September to $686 million in October.
“Though part of that may be from a general sales increase from the approaching holiday season,” Hardekopf said.
Wells Fargo said it will continue to publish monthly reports as part of their “ongoing commitment to transparency.” The next report is due in mid-December, which will track changes from the month of November.
“We recognize we have work to do and we are focused on strengthening our relationships with existing customers and building new ones with potential customers,” said Mary Mack, head of community banking at Wells Fargo.
Separately, Sen. Bob Corker (D-PA) has sent a letter to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) asking it for an expedited review to determine whether any Wells Fargo employees were unfairly dismissed as retribution as the result of speaking out or simply not participating in the bank’s aggressive cross sales tactics.
The bank has dismissed more than 5,000 employees over a five-year period related to the cross-sales program at the bank, in which eight relationships per customer was the target.
“Wells Fargo appears to have terminated employees because they either refused to break the law or reported unauthorized and abusive activities to their supervisors, the Wells Fargo ethics hotline, or human resources,” Casey said in the letter.