Wells Fargo Set To Move Away From Mortgage Lending After Series Of Scandals

American bank, Wells Fargo, is set to retreat from the mortgage business after years of scandals that have plagued the bank’s reputation.  

According to Bloomberg, the company plans on pulling back its mortgage business. The decision will reduce the bank’s ties to outside mortgage firms, which helped them generate $205 billion in new home loans last year. 

The demand for mortgages drastically falling is another reason the mortgage giant, Wells Fargo, has decided to step away from the industry it once dominated. 

“Like others in the industry, we’re evaluating the size of our mortgage business to adapt to a dramatically smaller originations market,” Wells Fargo said in a statement. 

Over recent years, Wells Fargo’s reputation has plummeted. In 2020, reports revealed that the company had been more inclined to reject Black homeowners than to accept them. In addition, the platform had approved double the applications sent by white applications, which is drastically higher than their white counterparts. 

Additionally, federal civil rights prosecutors opened an examination into Wells Fargo’s hiring practices after reports revealed that some managers had conducted fake interviews with Black and female job applicants.