Three U.S. Senators - Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden and Robert Menendez – have widened the scope of the Wells Fargo scandal.  What was first characterized as a retail banking problem has been extend to the bank’s broker-dealer unit.

Wells Fargo all along has maintained that it fired 5,300 workers for improper sales practices over a period of 5 years, but now we learn that more than 600 of those terminated employees worked for the broker-dealer - based on Forms U-5 submitted to FINRA. And, according to FINRA explanations to congressional staff, only 207 of those Forms U-5 contained details indicating the terminations were related to practices that led to bogus accounts. Which is why, in their letter to Wells CEO Tim Sloan, the Senators questioned the bank's disclosures in Forms U-5 for terminated employees. 

"It would appear that Wells Fargo concealed key information from regulators that may have revealed the bank's misdeeds long before the September 2016 settlement," the senators wrote, requesting more information.

The incomplete Form U-5 filings may have deprived regulators of information that could have allowed them to uncover and stop the "illegal activity" sooner, the senators said.

At a conference on Thursday, Sloan said he had no knowledge of issues outside the retail bank – though, it's common knowledge that  Wells Fargo's retail branches also house employees from other business units who offer products besides bank accounts.