Comments on: Mass Media Crashes Bank Parties

By: Editor

Editor — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:39:36 +0000

Agreed.

By: Libby | employee recognition

Libby | employee recognition — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 22:58:53 +0000

I agree that any new programs booked and paid for should be reviewed but this may be a case that the amount of saving from canceling at this point is less than what they would gain from going forward with their employee recognition party and having happy employees that will spill over to their customer satisfaction.

By: The Financial Brand » Blog Archive » Credit unions to pay for their day in the sun

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:38:24 +0000

[...] Takeaway: It’s not just “employee recognition events” (aka “parties,” aka “junkets”) that will get a financial institution [...]

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:23:20 +0000

A press article today reports that a new provision in the economic stimulus package will allow banks to pay back TARP immediately and cancel warrants the government owns.

Guess we’ll find out if Wells Fargo really did need the $$, or not.

By: Jeffry Pilcher

Jeffry Pilcher — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:23:14 +0000

Wells Fargo’s event was not planned for tellers and clerks. In fact, the “12-day event” was actually two separate events. The first was for the mortgage division’s top performers — the folks banging out millions of dollars of mortgages every month. For some reason, Wells decided to downplay this point, perhaps because the company’s top mortgage producers are pretty rich folks. Nevertheless, the point WF’s Stumph makes is the same: regardless of who the attendees are, employee recognition and rewards programs are the discretion of the company, and, quite frankly, really no one else’s business.

Thanks for your comments Lucas, Jim and Denise. And Jim, thanks for the link back to your story. It’s interesting to hear from top brass inside organization such as Wells Fargo.

By: Denise Wymore

Denise Wymore — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:51:46 +0000

It is my understanding that Wells Fargo was forced to take TARP money so as not to give them an unfair advantage in the marketplace, i.e. NOT being scrutinized for their parties.

This week will tell just how much the government will own the banks – I have a feeling we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg……

By: Jim Perry

Jim Perry — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:02:53 +0000

I posted something on our blog about this last Thursday and then happened to meet a Wells Fargo employee at a Chamber of Commerce event that evening. Take a look at the response he left to my blog post. He too expressed his frustration that the media overlooked the news that Wells Fargo had just announced a quarterly dividend payment of $371.5 million back to the U.S. Treasury on the 25,000 shares of stock purchased by the Treasury through the TARP Capital Purchase Program.

By: Lucas

Lucas — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:21:56 +0000

I find WFC’s consternation about the laser like scrutiny they are under to be laughable.

I didn’t see the ad myself but this is from the Reuters article about the ad/flap: **But the cancellation of those events hurts those Wells Fargo employees who are “most deserving of recognition,” such as tellers, personal bankers, operations clerks and credit analysts, the ad says.**

How many tellers and operations clerks do you think were on the guest list for The Wynn Hotel in Fabulous Las Vegas?
I bet the # of tellers and back office clerks would be a grand total of zero. Heck, maybe I’m wrong, but that’s my guess.

Word on the street is that Kovacevich was the most adamant of the group-of-9 about not wanting the TARP $$’s…he should have stuck to his guns. But until WFC pays BarnCo back the rules have changed, and they’ll just have to deal with it.