Can Wells Fargo Ever Make Amends?

Wells Fargo wants the American public to know that it’s really sorry. After the bank’s leadership for years managed to miss the fact that its salespeople were opening up fake accounts in order to hit monthly sales goals, the bank has embarked on an apology tour of sorts, which includes greater transparency about how it plans to make it up to the customers it defrauded. The bank’s new CEO, Tim Sloan, recently thanked customers for their loyalty, apologized for the scandal, and promised to work toward building a better bank in the future.

But will any of Wells Fargo’s public-facing mea culpas ultimately do anything to prevent similar failures in the future?

So far, Wells Fargo has been fined around $185 million by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the that an additional $75 million in compensation would be clawed back from Carrie Tolstedt, the executive at the helm of the division that created the fake accounts, and the company’s former CEO, John Stumpf. That brings the total value ofactions against executives to nearly $200 million.