Wells Fargo to shut down personal lines of credit for customers

July 8 (UPI) -- Wells Fargo has told its customers it is shutting down all existing personal lines of credit and will no longer offer such products.

CEO Charlie Scharf has been working to streamline operations as Wells Fargo continues to emerge from scandals over fake accounts and other abuses that rocked one of the largest banking systems in the United States.

"In an effort to simplify our product offerings, we've made the decision to no longer offer personal lines of credit as we feel we can better meet the borrowing needs of our customers through credit card and personal loan products," the bank told customers in an emailed statement, according to Bloomberg.

The bank said the email served as a 60-day notice for customers before it starts closing the accounts.

While Wells Fargo did not disclose how many customers would be affected, according to the bank's 2021 first quarter supplement, it had $24.9 billion in loans in a category called "other customer" in March, 26% lower than the previous year.

Commercial lending has slowed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic last year when there was an initial boom.

Banking regulators in 2018 prevented Wells Fargo from increasing its balance sheet until it corrected compliance issues connected with the fake accounts scandal.