Write a short reply to this post What are the three practices that you assign the highest priority? The practices would need to come from the top leadership and down through the company. There would need to be regular external audits, risk assessments, and a company ethics program. Regular audits as well coupled with external audits. When you look at what happened with Wells Fargo, you wonder how it went undetected for so long.

How would you address these three practices? There would need to be community banking audits enacted as part of a corporate strategy. The COO Risk Officer would need to lead and manage risk assessment plans and this would include outside audits. Outside audits would be important considering the inside unethical behaviors that occurred. Many insiders knew of the fraud and an outside person would be less likely to cover up issues. Controls would need to be put in place to detect the fraud that might occur with accounts. Unethical behaviors would need consequences when they are discovered. Illegal and unethical behaviors need corrected when they are identified and not allowed to become the company norm.

Looking at the big picture, what about Wells Fargo's corporate culture is encouraging these practices and how would you change the overall corporate culture to discourage them? Wells Fargo's corporate culture had targets that needed to be met. All levels within the bank permitted unethical behavior in order to meet the targets. The fraud and unethical behavior was widespread on many levels. Many people turned a blind eye and acted like they didn't know. Unfortunately, workers from the top to the bottom seemed happy to commit fraud as long as numbers were met or quotas.