Finra wants to speak with fired Wells Fargo reps connected to cross-selling scandal

Citing news articles with Wells Fargo workers questioning why they were fired after the bank’s recent cross-selling scandal came to light, Finra said on Friday it was looking to speak with former bank employees who were terminated and wound up losing their securities registration.
“Recent news reports have highlighted several former Wells Fargo bank employees who believe they were terminated from the bank for reporting or refusing to engage in allegedly fraudulent account-opening activities,” read the statement from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc.
Wells Fargo & Co. has been in the cross hairs of various regulators since September. That’s when the bank was fined $185 million for opening checking and credit card accounts that customers never approved or knew about. More than 5,000 bank employees were fired, including an unidentified number of registered securities brokers.
Finra is particularly concerned about former Wells Fargo brokers’ forms U5, according to the Finra statement. A form U5 is used by a broker-dealer when terminating an adviser. The form must be submitted within 30 days of the adviser leaving the firm and generally is required to be filed electronically. Firms are also required to provide the rep with a copy within 30 days.
(More: Finra’s sweep of broker-dealer cross-selling may head off problems )
Brokers are commonly fearful that firms may add disclosures to their form U5 that may harm their careers down the road. That appears to be part of the reason Finra wants to speak with former Wells Fargo advisers.
“The reports indicate that a subset of these individuals who were also registered with Finra to conduct securities activities have raised concerns that they did not receive a copy of their form U5 termination notice within 30 days of being terminated as required by Finra rules, or that their form U5 contained inaccurate or incomplete comments related to the reason for the termination,” according to Finra’s statement.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman, Elise Wilkinson, did not immediately return a call Friday afternoon to comment.
(See: Bank of America wants more referrals from its Merrill Lynch advisers )