From San Francisco Business Times:
Wells Fargo said Friday it has started layoffs as the bank seeks to cut costs by almost 20%. It’s the start of what could be the biggest transformation of the company since it shifted its primary focus to banking from transportation more than a century ago.
The San Francisco bank is expected to lay off tens of thousands of employees, gut layers of management, shutter more branches, slash vendor spending and possibly even move its headquarters out of California, where it was founded in 1852. Wells Fargo would not say how many jobs are being cut this month.
Last month, Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf hinted at the scope of the transformation on the second-quarter earnings call to the apparent disbelief of some of his listeners, based on my interpretation of the Q&A. But the chief executive, who took the helm last October to rebuild the scandal-plagued bank, sees plenty of room to boost operational efficiency and focus on more profitable parts of the banking business.
“We as a management team continue to believe that the opportunities are substantial to improve the efficiency of the organization because we see it day in and day out,” Scharf told investors last month. “It’s not just people. The third-party spend is extraordinary. The things that we rely on outside people to do is beyond anything that I’ve ever seen. Our ability to reduce facilities is substantial. There’s this long list of things that we will be actively working on.
Continue reading Wells Fargo’s latest layoffs signal historic transformation underway on San Francisco Business Times
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