A leading U.S. regulator wants to make it easier for Wells Fargo to pay employees when they leave, loosening a restriction in place since a phony accounts scandal hit the bank last year, according to people familiar with the matter.
The initiative comes as President Donald Trump is trying to lighten rules on Wall Street and the bank regulator, Keith Noreika, acting Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), must weigh whether to vet new Wells Fargo executives.
If Noreika's approach prevails, the OCC could go easier on Wells Fargo and any other large banks sanctioned in the future.
Since Noreika took control of the OCC in May, he has advocated easing up on sanctions imposed on Wells Fargo in the wake of the scandal over abusive sales practices, according to current and former officials.
Wells Fargo reached a $190 million settlement in September 2016 after admitting that its sales staff opened as many as 2.1 million accounts without customers' consent. Since then the estimate has climbed to as many as 3.5 million.
As part of the deal with regulators, incoming Wells Fargo executives can face a vetting from the OCC while severance payouts must be cleared by the OCC and a sister agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
But Noreika wants officials to work faster when they review severance pay and the agency can choose to waive its check on incoming executives.
Wells Fargo declined comment on the reviews.
Hundreds of Wells Fargo employees have had their severance payouts frozen when they left as regulators tried to determine what role those employees might have had in the scandal.
Under one proposal floated by the OCC, departing employees would collect severance automatically if regulators could not finish their review within weeks, according to one current and two former officials who were not authorized to discuss an internal debate.