Diversity Empowers Marketing: Banking and Finance

MIREMS works to make diverse voices accessible by providing translated summaries of web, print, ratio and TV news, advertising and advertorials.

Russian: "Big cuts"

San Fransisco's Russian source Kstati reports:
Wells Fargo, the third largest bank in the United States, headquartered in San Francisco, will lay off 26,000 employees over the next three years, or about 10% of employees. This was stated by the Chief Executive Officer of Wells Fargo, Tim Sloan. Currently, the bank employs about 265,000 people. The cuts will affect employees from a variety of Bank branches. Since 2015, Wells Fargo has been shaken by a number of serious scandals. Bank employees opened millions of fake bank accounts for customers to get good premiums. In addition, Wells Fargo was implicated in imposing car insurance on customers, although they did not need it. (14/10/2018)

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South Asian: "Buffett says US, China will avoid acting ‘extremely foolish’ on trade, defends Wells Fargo"

South Asian source in Houston, Texas, The Jago Times reports:

Billionaire Warren Buffett said on Saturday it is unlikely that the United States and China will come to loggerheads on trade, and he thinks the countries will avoid doing “something extremely foolish.” Buffett, 87, and his longtime partner and fellow billionaire Charlie Munger, 94, also took pointed questions on Wells Fargo & Co, politics, guns, healthcare and their investment choices from shareholders, journalists and analysts at the Berkshire meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. Buffett defended Wells Fargo and its chief executive, Tim Sloan, in response to a question asking when Berkshire would ditch the bank, one of its largest common stock holdings. Many shareholders applauded the question. He said the bank committed the “cardinal sin” of incentivizing employees into “kind of crazy conduct,” for which US regulators imposed $1 billion in fines last month for lending abuses. “Wells Fargo is a company that proved the efficacy of incentives, and it’s just that they had the wrong incentives,” said Buffett. But he maintained that the bank is not “inferior” as an investment or morally to its main banking rivals. Berkshire owned $25.2 billion of Wells Fargo stock as of March 31, down 14 percent from the year-end as a series of scandals weighed on the bank’s reputation. Wells Fargo investors gave strong backing to the bank’s directors and executives on Tuesday, indicating confidence in its overhauled leadership to rebound.(06/05/2018)

Polish: "One billion dollar penalty for the Wells Fargo bank"

Chicago's Polish source Dziennik Zwiazkowy reports:

The Wells Fargo bank, based in San Francisco, was fined $1 billion for illegal banking practices on fees related to mortgage and car loans. This is the highest punishment in the US financial sector since the start of the Trump presidency. The bank was also obliged to return money to the affected customers as soon as possible. (20/04/2018)

Infographic from Language Lines Solutions.

Spanish: "Wall Street falls after hike in US bond yields"

Miami's El Nuevo Herald reports:

Stock prices fell on Thursday after the rise in US interest rates shook world markets. Investors sold securities of technology and internet companies and the Nasdaq compound posted its biggest loss in three months. The solid reports on hiring and the industrial sector have caused bond prices to fall during the last two days, as brokers bet that the US economy will continue to grow at a pace close to today's. Sameer Samana, a strategist for the Wells Fargo Investment Institute, said that after months of positive economic data, brokers market bonds are selling because they have decided that yields are at a level too low to get a good profit for your investment. (04/10/2018)

African American: "Wells Fargo increases its commitment to Black home buyers"

African American source The Dallas Post Tribune reports:

In 2017, Wells Fargo announced a commitment to create 250,000 African American homeowners by 2027. In addition to lending $60 billion for home purchases over that 10-year period, the banking giant has committed to increase the diversity of its sales team, particularly African American home mortgage consultants. Further, bank officials said they’ve dedicated $15 million for initiatives focused on home buyer education and counseling for Black families. This commitment is only part of the efforts that Wells Fargo has made over the past year to show that it values customers of color, said Cerita Battles, the senior vice president and head of retail diverse segments at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage. By the end of 2017, Wells Fargo reported that it helped 23,161 African American families with $5.7 billion in home loans, which was a significant increase over the previous year and 99.7 percent of the bank’s first-year goal, despite a falling mortgage market, Battles said. The bank also dedicated more than $1.8 million in grants to support home buyer education and counseling for African American audiences, exceeding its first-year goal. Battles said the majority of support from that work comes primarily from three areas of the Wells Fargo Housing Foundation, including the National Housing Grant Program, the Homeownership Counseling Grant Program, and down payment assistance grants through NeighborhoodLIFT. “We are also supporting new initiatives like HomeFree-USA’s Center for Financial Advancement Program, which will offer financial education and expose students to the mortgage industry as a career option on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs),” Battles said. “And, the future holds great promise as we have several improvements that have been put in place for 2018, including doubling the amount of money dedicated to NeighborhoodLIFT.” (26/04/2018)

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