What else?
@5chq+1ulX3YQB A.B. was the CIO who made that comment. Q.K. also said something along RTO lines but it was more thoughtful and nothing like the immature tantrum that A.B. threw. He needs to get a grip.
Q.K. is the CIO who told everyone today on the tech all employee call that people need to get over their RTO concerns because the company isn't changing direction.
They "value our comments" yet they insult us by talking to us like we're 8 year olds.
It's almost as if they think it's still 1998 and we aren't talking #%$% in side channels during their ridiculous meetings.
Remember to do the right thing by resisting RTO and tanking those TTUS scores!
Fully in agreement with @5vws+1ulX3YQB
We need leaders that can lead from the front fearlessly and not just fake ones that follow a disastrous playbook from a lousy consulting company that's failed at other competing banks. It's not rocket science.
Hearing about a frustrated "CIO" slip up and air his grievances about RTO complaints on some tech group call etc. Waiting for more info but the gist seems to be that a warning was issued to tech employees to stop complaining about RTO as they won't be changing course etc. If that's true then the messaging is mixed (empathy vs. warnings) and even worse handled than originally thought. But that's what one gets without true leadership.
USB ship is sinking fast it seems. What a shame! A once great company destroyed within a few years of poor and incompetent executive leadership.
AC also has hired non-technical tech leaders including Dilip V - a Joe Biden - sleeps thru meetings (literally), can hardly keep his eyes open - is too old for the job & his minions who are non-tech and at best long tenured program managers now moonlighting as CIOs. The entire bunch is waiting for their 3-4 years until retirement and have no clue. All bozos.
Return to Office (RTO) is a disaster in Tech. People are rebelling openly and the CIOs don't care. They are just ignoring their employees - despite concerns, despite pain points and with no real solution. Dilip has seen tech degrade with billions lost. But he and his tech-less CIOs prevail - why ?
Cloud and Data programs were run to the ground by DV's cronies. Billions lost and we are one of the least tech savvy banks who will go the way of Blockbuster / Kodak if we rely on these id--ts for tech
It’s not reversible, it’s a missed opportunity and often when you miss an opportunity, you don’t get another one.
Some banks never recover from a bad CEO stint.
@1ltz+1ulX3YQB do you think this is a reversible situation?
Many of us thought to highly of ourselves. We drank the Kool Aid that we were better than others in many aspects. We sc--wed up the Union merger, we messed up Elavon, we got too complacent. We got paid to do the Union Bank deal and we still owe MUFG billions, even though Union made 2-3B per year. Our technology is falling behind and unable to deliver on promises. Our payments credo was smoke and mirrors and AC has lost all cost containment. Sometime we just need to say, yeah we are not that good.
"$21 million fine to the CFPB for illegally restricting access to unemployed individuals to their prepaid unemployment benefits, December, 2023"
OCC also fined U.S. Bank $15 million related to this conduct, so the total is $36 million for this.
Re: risk management comments
Search “U.S. Bank + enforcement action” in your favorite browser and tell us if you think that is quality risk management.
Then listen to the bank’s chief risk officer talk about how crazy the regulators are.
Massive disconnect
https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default/files/enforcement_action/2023-04-05/Michael_LaFontaine_Assessment_02.26.20_508.pdf
WASHINGTON—The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) today announced a $75 million civil money penalty against U.S. Bank National Association of Cincinnati, Ohio, for deficiencies in the bank’s Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and anti-money laundering (AML) compliance program. These deficiencies were the subject of the OCC’s 2015 consent order against the bank.
This personal fine to the former risk officer comes just a few weeks after FinCEN, the OCC and DOJ issued a $185 million civil money penalty against U.S. Bank for, among other things, willfully violating the BSA’s requirements to implement and maintain an effective anti-money laundering (AML) program and to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) in a timely manner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Wednesday said it has hit a former risk officer at a subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp with a $450,000 civil penalty for his role in failing to prevent violations of the U.S. anti-money laundering law.
Michael LaFontaine, the former chief operational risk officer at U.S. Bank NA, admitted he failed to take steps to implement and maintain an effective compliance program to prevent money laundering, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) said on Wednesday.
U.S. Bancorp in 2018 agreed to a $613 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over related charges. At the time, prosecutors said the lender failed to detect large numbers of suspicions transactions and concealed missteps from regulators.
La Fontaine admitted responsibility in failing to make sure the bank was properly staffed to meet regulations, according to a filing from FinCEN, a unit of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
"Mr. LaFontaine was warned by his subordinates and by regulators that capping the number of alerts was dangerous and ill-advised," FinCEN Director Kenneth A. Blanco said in a statement
$613 million fine from February, 2018 paid to the Federal Reserve, the OCC and Treasury for failed AML program, significant misses on numerous high risk transaction, then U.S. Bank allegedly tried to cover it up
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/us-bancorp-to-pay-613-million-for-money-laundering-violations-idUSKCN1FZ1YI/
$37.5 million fine to the CFPB for improper access to customers credit reports to sign them up for credit card they did not authorize, July, 2022
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-fines-us-bank-37-5-million-for-illegally-exploiting-personal-data-to-open-sham-accounts-for-unsuspecting-customers/
$21 million fine to the CFPB for illegally restricting access to unemployed individuals to their prepaid unemployment benefits, December, 2023
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-us-bank-to-pay-21-million-for-illegal-conduct-during-covid-19-pandemic/
What are you basing failed risk management on? That has always been U.S. Bank's strength. I don't think we will really know until we enter another recession but that is my perspective. I'm truly curious what you are basing that off of.
Running a bank is a lot like being a captain of a massive ship. A lot of decisions you make about navigation of risk may never come to light, but need to be made well in advance. If those decisions turn out to be wrong or you misread your instruments, disaster strikes and can escalate quickly.
Unfortunately for the bank, AC was not the right captain and the board of directors didn’t notice until it was too late.
Iceberg dead ahead.
That sums it up.
The horrible Union Bank acquisition and stock price well underperforming compared to peers
How this guy didn’t get fired amaze me
The stock performance under AC tells the whole story. USB is down about 15-20% from when he took over from RKD. Compared to JPM, WFC, BAC and the BKW index, all of which are positive well into the double digits over the same period since Q2 2018, it is clear that AC is a terrible CEO.
You could also add a disastrous and ill-timed acquisition that exposed the executive team to be incompetent and may eventually lead to the bank's downfall.
He inherited a bank that was a leader amongst its peers only to destroy it by bringing in a group of non-banker consultants with a social policy agenda and no sensible or intelligible strategy.
AC should have been fired a long time ago. The board needs to wake up and clean house in the C-Suite starting with AC and GK.