The company took a surprise $1 billion charge in the quarter for previously disclosed regulatory investigations into its pre-crisis mortgage activity, the third-largest U.S. lender said Friday in a statement. The expense pushed total costs to a record $14.4 billion.
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The bank is one of the last firms not to have settled with regulators and the Justice Department over its handling of home loans in the run up to the housing crisis. It said in August that it was increasing its estimate for what it deemed “reasonably possible” legal charges beyond reserves in part because of “existing mortgage-related regulatory investigations.”
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Wells Fargo also had trouble in its underlying businesses. Revenue in the third-largest U.S. bank’s community banking division, the home for all the lending it does to America’s consumers, fell to $12.1 billion, the lowest since the quarter after news broke about the fake accounts. Net income in the unit, which generates the majority of Wells Fargo’s profit, plunged 31 percent to $2.23 billion.