Bank of Oklahoma, also known as BOK Financial, may be one of several banks where employees create fake accounts to meet sales quotas. BOK Financial was founded over 100 years ago and still serves numerous state residents, which makes its potential association with the fake account scandal very troubling.

According to a recent review of bank practices by federal regulators, there were several systemic issues identified impacting dozens of medium- and large-size banks, which potentially includes BOK Financial.

The Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC) had examined over 40 banks after the recent fake accounts scandal at Wells Fargo was discovered, in which employees had opened millions of fake accounts to meet aggressive sales goals.

Wells Fargo Scandal

The Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal was revealed between 2016 and 2017, when it was discovered that bank employees had allegedly opened millions of fake accounts to meet sales goals and to be eligible for bonuses.

Wells Fargo employees had allegedly opened over two million customer accounts without consumers’ consent. As realization and complaints rolled in, the bank eventually reached a $142 million settlement and had to pay numerous fines for this activity.

Wells Fargo also had to agree to change their sales goals to make them more reasonable, and encouraged employees not to use deceptive tactics against customers.

Overview of OCC Investigation

The OCC’s review investigated whether or not these fake account problems are industry wide issues. While the OCC does not plan to make the results of their investigation public, it did state that there were five systemic problems and 250 issues at the individual level.

However, one of the things the OCC has disclosed was that other banks may have also opened bank accounts without customers’ consent. Other issues were noted and certain problems were revealed because of the review to be addressed.

According to OCC spokesman Bryan Hubbard, the investigation revealed that some banks could not provide proper documentation of the origins of all their accounts. The OCC review reportedly allowed banks to reanalyze their sales strategies, also allowing them to address their weaknesses.

“Most banks took timely actions during the review to address weaknesses in policies, procedures, and controls; incentive programs; and their risk governance frameworks. [A]s a result, systems and controls in these banks are now better integrated and more apt to identify inappropriate sales activities in a timely manner,” Hubbard stated in an email.

In addition, Hubbard stated that the OCC investigation had found instances of specific banks opening accounts without proof the customers consented. Employees were found to be doing this for various reasons; some of the most common factors the review identified was short term sales promotions without sufficient risk management, inadequate procedures for opening and closing accounts, and isolated situations of employee misconduct.

A representative of PriceWaterhouseCooper offered further details of the OCC investigation results, stating the agency had issued approximately 252 Matter Requiring Attention (MRA) citations to banks whose sales practices were under review and allegedly needed to be corrected in some way.