Wells Fargo loses funds

from SF Chronicle, 2/8:

Wells Fargo loses funds

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to withdraw $3 billion in city operating funds from San Francisco’s Wells Fargo in response to the bank’s financial backing of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The city will open a bidding process to find a new bank to hold its funds, but the new ordinance more widely aims to strengthen policies for conducting business “with partners that are committed to fair business practices.”
“The city must trust the practices and integrity of the institutions that handle our public funds,” Councilwoman Debra Juarez said in a statement Friday.

In October, Seattle canceled a $100 million bond deal with Wells Fargo, citing the bank’s practice of opening deposit and credit accounts without customer knowledge. Juarez called the bond cancellation “a drop in a very big bucket,” but added that withdrawing all city funds is a bigger hit to the bank.

Co-sponsored by Kshama Sawant and Tim Burgess, the ordinance passed out of committee on an 8-0 vote. Outside City Hall, people rallied in support of the vote.

Many in Seattle have protested the Dakota Access Pipeline, prompting the move to cut all ties with Wells Fargo because it has backed the project.

While I wholly support this move- having lived much of my adult life in WA I want to make a couple of clarifications here.

First- the contract with Wells Fargo runs through Dec 31 2018- which does not change.

Second- while I have seen numerous inflated numbers bandied about in this discussion- the reality is Seattles average daily balance with WF is only $10 Million. That is the number that actually affects WF.

And finally, unless they can make a smallish credit union work for them, I really don't a bank out there that isn't just as involved in other sorts of nastiness.