The wealth-management unit is “making significant progress in our work to identify and fix any issues, make things right, and build a better, stronger company,” Leordeanu said in a written statement. She said the early 2017 changes to the pay structure eliminated rewards for promoting certain account types in favor of paying for overall revenue growth.

Wells Fargo Advisors, the main retail arm of the wealth-management unit, stands by its pay plans and reviews them regularly to ensure they’re working in the best interests of clients, Leordeanu said.

Wells Fargo Advisors manages $1.6 trillion in client assets and employs 14,500 advisers who work at about 5,360 of its 6,000 retail branches, as well as in stand-alone investment offices for wealthy clients.

The new details about Wells Fargo’s wealth-management business in recent years by the current and former employees could add to the bank’s woes. Wells Fargo shares have lost about 13 percent of their value this year as an S&P financials index has declined by 1 percent.

The bank is also continuing to field questions from local, state and federal authorities, in a domino-line of probes set off by its 2016 retail banking settlement. In February, the Federal Reserve took the rare step of sanctioning Wells Fargo, saying it can’t expand until it fixes oversight lapses.

Bank Firings
Internal documents show that, in the past, some employees in retail bank branches could earn thousands of dollars for referring a client to a bank unit that handles trusts and estates, according to a person who has reviewed the documents.

Certain other retail employees were paid flat $25 fees for referring a client to investment advisers, the person added. A 2014 study by Gallup Inc., the polling company, said that employee sales incentives were common in bank branches.

For referrals to the trusts and estates unit, some retail bank employees received as much as 15 percent of first-year revenue on accounts of up to $10 million, Leordeanu acknowledged when asked about the incentives. The investments were often placed in a fee-based product known as a managed account. A bank investment strategist or trust adviser, rather than the client, picks specific investments in those accounts. Some customers prefer these managed accounts because they prefer to pay a fee instead of trading commissions.

A 2015 investment unit pay grid reviewed by Bloomberg indicates that advisers received credits for having at least 60 percent of client assets in fee-based accounts or for generating at least 80 percent of revenue from those accounts, rather than from commission-based brokerage accounts.

Planning Software
The push to sell was also aided by technology. When customers sat down at Wells Fargo Advisors, the reps across the desk were instructed by their managers to run them through the bank’s Envision financial planning software. The software relies on the same sort of Monte Carlo financial planning simulations used at other banks to estimate clients’ chances of hitting financial goals, according to the internal pay grid as well as one current and one former adviser.