The Guardian (UK), in a February 16 article outing “Wells Fargo chairman John Stumpf []as corporate America's highest paid executive last year,” quotes Fair Finance Watch that
“although Wells Fargo was not involved in packaging toxic mortgage-backed securities on the capital markets, it did its fair share of risky lending on the high street, shrewdly passing the loans on to third parties. ‘They were as big in sub-prime as some of the others were but they weren't left holding the baby when the music stopped,’ said Lee.”
What do we mean by what? Well, how many subprime loans a company made can be measured with some objectivity, using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data including the Federal Reserve’s own definition of subprime: three percentage points over prime on a first lien, five on a second. By that measure, Wells Fargo has been a major subprime mortgage lender.
But beyond mortgages, Wells Fargo is a major subprime personal loan provider, through storefronts of Wells Fargo Financial. See, www.innercitypress.org/wells.html
