Wells Fargo will pay $575 million to resolve investigations by all 50 states and Washington, D.C., into a range of practices, the latest chapter in the bank’s long-running legal problems.

The deal ends inquiries that began after federal regulators revealed in September 2016 that Wells Fargo employees had for years opened millions of unauthorized bank accounts in customers’ names. The employees said they had done so because they feared losing their jobs if they could not meet Wells Fargo’s aggressive sales goals.



The disclosure led to the departure of Wells Fargo’s chief executive at the time, John G. Stumpf, and several other senior executives. It also sullied the company’s prized image as the best-behaved major American bank after the 2008 financial crisis.

Wells Fargo admitted its missteps and paid fines of $185 million, but accusations of bad behavior kept multiplying: that some customers who took out car loans were forced to buy unwanted auto insurance; that more than 500,000 people were enrolled in a bill-paying service they may not have asked to join; that some mortgage customers had been overcharged; and that some people had been charged for life-insurance policies they did not buy.