Wells Fargo's November Retail Trends Similar to Weak October: CEO

Wells Fargo's retail bank trends in November were probably similar to those in the previous month, CEO Tim Sloan said Tuesday at an investor conference in New York.

Retail customers opened 44% fewer new accounts in October compared with the same period a year earlier, following the bank's settlement with regulators over a cross-selling scandal, the San Francisco-based lender said Nov. 17. New credit card applications dropped by half to 200,000 in October, the first full month since the lender disclosed the settlement on Sept. 8.

Wells Fargo has been releasing monthly statistics following the disclosure that retail bank employees opened roughly 2 million unauthorized credit card and deposit accounts. The next update will be Dec. 16, the company said in a presentation on its website. Sloan did not indicate Tuesday whether the November comparison was based on a year-over-year or a month-over-month basis.

"While we had challenges in the retail business, the rest of the company is performing quite well," Sloan said. "I'm confident that we'll be able to continue the growth in all of the other businesses."

Sloan reiterated that the bank will spend "tens of millions" to fix the sales practices, including costs tied to litigation and beefing up its risk-oversight operations.