Regulatory Framework And Impact On Wells Fargo & Co In Australia

Wells Fargo&Co is a bank holding company which deals in diversified financial services, and therefore it operates under the bank and financial industry. It has three operating segments which include, wealth and investment, wholesale banking, community banking and others. The wealth and investment segment provides personalized wealth management, retirement and investment products, and services across the globe (Sterngold and Fargo, 2014 p. 25). The wholesale banking segment, on the other hand, offers a variety of financial solutions to various businesses all over the world.

According to Cayla, Beers and Arnould, (2014 p. 89), the community banking segment provides a variety of financial products and services for different consumers and other small businesses. The Wells Fargo & Co. was founded by William G.Fargo and Henry Wells in 1852, and it is located in San Francisco. The company has 269.1 thousand staff all over the world, however, in Australia, the company has about 3200 staff across the country. It is headquartered in Sydney.

The above legislative framework aims at streamlining the consumer protection and market integrity in the financial service industry. Additionally, it offers disclosure, conduct and harmonized licensing framework which is to be followed by the various financial service providers. The body which is entrusted with the enforcement of the above legislative, regulatory framework is the Reserve Bank of Australia (Tomasic, 2017 p. 100). Under the act, the Reserve Bank of Australia will be in charge of ensuring that the facilities dealing in settlement and clearing perform their activities in a manner which is consistent with the financial system stability. Since it is the role of RBA to ensure that all these facilities which are concerned with the settlement and clearing, it will, therefore, monitor all the companies to ensure that they comply with the financial stability standards which have been set for the facilities

The Australian Securities and Investment Commission also plays a crucial role in the enforcement of the regulatory framework, and this is because it is charged with all the issues which are based on the facilities dealing in clearing and settlement. The key roles entail investor protection, corporate governance, enforcing compliance with the standards of the Reserve Bank of Australia and market integrity (Salvioni and Gennari, 2015 p. 789). The above legislative, regulatory framework affects Wells Fargo & Co since it is a requirement that it abides by the financial stability standards necessary during clearing and settlement. It, however, affects the company by the fact that there are a lot of investors in the securities of the company in the exchange market who typically rely on them for success and good returns on investment.

The other key legislative, regulatory framework is on the financial markets, products, and sector intermediaries. It aims to provide protection to both the consumers and the market from a variety of malicious acts such as manipulation, unfair practices, and deception. With such protection provided to the individuals and the market, there will be confident participation in the financial system by consumers and investors (Blundell-Wignall, Atkinson and Roulet, 2014 p. 70).

According to Stanley and Buckley (2016 p. 83), the body which is responsible for the above regulatory framework is referred to as the Australian Securities and Investment Commission which is seeking to encourage fairness and honesty in the financial industry, securities, and the markets. It aims to attain such a goal through timely and sufficient disclosure of information about the market. Additionally, the body has been entrusted with certain other responsibilities, and they include, establishing guidance and policy on various laws it controls, provision of clear and accurate information on corporate activity and monitoring and licensing of the compliance by participants in the financial system.

The regulatory framework also aims at ensuring that all the participants in the financial industry comply with credit union code of practice, code of banking practice, electronic fund transfer code of practice and the building society code of practice. The above codes aid by providing alternative dispute resolution schemes. The regulatory framework provides, therefore, provide licenses to the multinational corporations as well as the Wells Fargo & Co and each of the companies are required pay for the licenses and an additional 25 percent corporation tax. However, such a cost is passed on to the various consumers by charging high interest rates and several other banking charges. This has negatively impacted the company since the profits it has been generating has reduced over the past few years in Australia.

Most of the consumers have resorted to the other financial institutions which offer low interest rates and other charges (Viktoriia 2014 p. 2). Recently, the government has replaced the multiple routes of licensing with a single set of licensing for the clearing and settlement facility and the Australian financial market. Under the law, the individuals concerned with the provision of the licenses for companies especially the multinational corporations will also be responsible for licensing of clearing and settlement facilities and the markets.

According to Barth, Prabha, and Wihlborg (2014 p. 258), the above framework aims at protecting the depositors of the various financial institutions such as the life and general insurance, friendly societies and the superannuation. The body charged with the administration and control of the regulatory framework is called the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, and it develops the various policies which help to ensure financial efficiency and safety. Under the circumstances in which the corporations fail to abide by such regulatory framework the legal actions are taken against them (Gumley, 2014 p. 400).

The Wells & Fargo Company, therefore, has to ensure that it provides protection to his clients located in Australia. Additionally, the above legislative, regulatory framework requires ha all the multinational corporations have some of their assets held in Australia, and this should be equal to the deposit liabilities located in Australia. However, the above requirement does not act as a form of guarantee of the depositors’ funds, and hence they do not have recourse to the regulatory bodies.

The Wells Fargo company issued a statement regarding the agreements on the sales practices. Such a treaty was made with the consumer financial protection bureau, Office of the Los Angeles City Attorney and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (Williams, 2015 p. 450). The agreement was in relation to the allegations which was made by various retail consumers who had been provided with certain products and services which they had not ordered for.

The Wells Fargo & Co is a society based financial service organization with an estimated asset worth $1.9 trillion. It was founded in 1852, and its headquarter is located in San Francisco. The company offers a variety of services such as commercial finance, consumer finance, banking, investments, insurance and mortgage among others. The firm also operates about 13,000 ATMs across the globe, and this is done in 36 nations, and it primarily aims at providing support to a variety of consumers who do business activities globally.

Additionally, it specializes in three households in the United States of America. Based on the recent statistics, it was reviewed positively by most of the customers all the world and hence given a five star. The Global fortune ranking indicates that it is number 27 and this is in regards to the large corporations in the United States of America and the world as a whole. It has about 263,000 staff all the world who help them in administration and management of different activities of the company. The vision of the firm is to satisfy the financial needs of their customers and hence assist them to succeed financially.

Based on the agreement signed, Wells Fargo issued a statement in the newsroom that in regards to the treaty, it will be consistent in their commitment to their customers and this will entail putting the interests of the consumers above those of the company (Apergis and Cooray, 2015 p. 160). They, therefore, regretted and even took the blame for the circumstances under which some of the customers were provided with particular products which they did not order for. The agreement entailed the following key details as is discussed below;

• Disciplinary action will be taken against all the team members and managers who acted against the values set by the company, and this will entail terminations and sacking of such individuals.
• There will be an extensive review of the circumstances before the prevailing situation had occurred and this will be carried out by a third party. All the small business retail and consumer banking deposit accounts will be assessed during such a period.
• Performance measures relating to customer ethics, loyalty, and satisfaction, will be strengthened
• There will be an increased investment to enhance the team members through training, controls, and monitoring
• A confirming email will also be sent to a variety of consumers after the opening of various deposit accounts. Further, the consumers who will send their application acknowledgment and decision status letter upon the submission of an application for a credit card.

A refund of about $2.6 million will be refunded to those consumers who will have received the product they did not order for, and this will include all the fees relating to such products. The refunded accounts is a representation of a one percent fraction of the total accounts which were reviewed by the third party.

Further, all the team members of the company were emailed, and the message was that the culture of Wells Fargo is based on satisfying and hence doing that which is right for its customers all the world. Whenever there are certain mistakes which have been made by any of the team members, the company is open and takes the blame by taking personal responsibility and actions towards the rectification of the mistake made (Tushnet, 2016 p. 627). However, the agreement which was made was typically consistent with the beliefs and cultures of the company and the customers were invited to verify for the beliefs and cultures of the company as indicated in their website (Ransbotham et al.2017 p. 1). The above treaty which was signed by the company will typically boost their sales in the sense that, customers all over the world will shift their attention and hence seek to purchase their products and services. Such an increase in the purchase of the products and services will be as a result of the satisfaction they derive from the services offered the team members of the company.

According to Coates (2014 p. 60), the other treaty which was signed by Wells Fargo was that relating to the principle to settle a class action lawsuit concerning retail sales practices. It was between the company and Jabbari. Such a treaty will entail all the individuals who had claims of certain accounts being opened without their consent and thereafter enrolled for various products and services without their consent. It is expected that the settlement agreement will resolve all the pending class action cases relating to the unauthorized opening of accounts (Kane et al.2014 p. 81). The chief executive officer on his part said that such a treaty was a step forward towards the journey of making things right with different consumers all over the world and hence rebuilding their trust.

Additionally, the agreement was meant to ensure that all the customers who had been negatively affected by the sales practices of the company were given an opportunity to remediate. The amount of money which was set aside for the settlement agreement was estimated to be about $110 million (Russell, Russell, and Honea, 2016 p. 770). Moreover, in the settlement agreement, all the customers of the company were encouraged to contact the company directly in case of any concern for an action to be taken to address their concerns. The above agreement will also boost the volume of sales of the company’s products and services, and this is attributed to the fact that trust on the company by the consumers will have been rebuild once they have been settled.

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