Wells Fargo Bank N.A, Loan Misrepresentation, California 2023

SAN FRANCISCO – Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and several of its affiliates will pay a civil penalty of $2.09 billion under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) based on the bank’s alleged origination and sale of residential mortgage loans that it knew contained misstated income information and did not meet the quality that Wells Fargo represented.

“Abuses in the mortgage-backed securities industry led to a financial crisis that devastated millions of Americans,” said Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, Alex G. Tse. “Today’s agreement holds Wells Fargo responsible for originating and selling tens of thousands of loans that were packaged into securities and subsequently defaulted. Our office is steadfast in pursuing those who engage in wrongful conduct that hurts the public.”

This settlement holds Wells Fargo accountable for actions that contributed to the financial crisis,” said Jesse Panuccio. “It sends a strong message that the Department is committed to protecting the nation’s economy and financial markets against fraud.”

According to the allegations, in 2005, Wells Fargo began an initiative to double its production of subprime and Alt-A loans. As part of that initiative, Wells Fargo loosened its requirements for originating stated income loans – loans where a borrower simply states his or her income without providing any supporting income documentation.

To evaluate the integrity of its increasing volume of stated income loans, Wells Fargo subjected a sample of these loans to “4506-T testing.” A 4506-T form is a government document signed by the borrower during the loan approval process that allows the lender to obtain the borrower’s tax transcripts from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 4506-T testing involves comparing the tax transcripts of the borrower with the income stated on the loan application. Wells Fargo implemented 4506-T testing on two of its programs. This testing revealed that more than 70% of the loans that Wells Fargo sampled had an “unacceptable” variance (greater than 20% discrepancy between the borrower’s stated income and the income information reflected in the borrower’s most recent tax returns filed with the IRS), and the average variance was approximately 65%. After receiving these results, Wells Fargo conducted further internal testing. This additional testing, performed by quality assurance analysts, was designed to determine if “plausible” explanations existed for the “unacceptable” variances over 20%. This additional step revealed that nearly half of the stated income loans that Wells Fargo tested had both an unacceptable variance and the absence of a plausible explanation for that variance.

Wells Fargo’s actions led to billions of dollars in losses for investors, including federally insured financial institutions, who purchased the mortgage-backed securities containing the defective loans.

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