A Bank’s Boss Pays the Price

It’s rare for the head of a big company to take the fall for his underlings’ actions, but at Wells Fargo, it actually happened. The bank’s former chief executive John G. Stumpf was fined $17.5 million — the largest individual fine in the history of federal banking regulation — for his role in fostering a toxic culture that encouraged employees to foist fake accounts and unnecessary financial products on millions of unsuspecting customers. He is one of the bank’s 5,300 workers who have lost their jobs over the scandal. He is also barred for life from working in the banking industry.

Image Credit... Till Lauer

What’s Next? (Feb. 2-8)

Fuss Over FICO Scores

Take a good look at your FICO score: It may be changing soon. The most widely used credit rating in the country is getting a new set of criteria, said Fair Isaac, the company behind it. And for many people, that’s not great news. Those with rising debt levels and overdue payments will be judged more harshly. The new scoring system will also flag consumers who sign up for personal loans — a category of debt that has skyrocketed in recent years as borrowers use it as a stopgap for ballooning credit card bills. The new system is likely to make it harder for struggling Americans to borrow money. But it will look even more kindly on those whose scores are already high.

A Plague on the Economy

The mysterious, deadly coronavirus outbreak in China is causing widespread panic and a significant dip in global markets. And its timing couldn’t be worse for businesses. Lunar New Year, a weeklong holiday that’s usually full of travel, shopping and gift giving, began on Friday. (It’s technically the largest human migration on the planet.) But this year, many people are canceling their plans and staying home because of travel bans and fear of contagion. While the virus is still spreading, it’s hard to gauge its economic impact so far, but a serious blow to China’s consumer market is likely to reverberate around the world.

Brexit Is Nigh

For years, Brexit was a hopeless quagmire of parliamentary rancor, but now it looks as if Britain will withdraw quite uneventfully from the European Union by next Friday’s deadline. What a difference a few months — and a strong Conservative majority in Parliament — make. The final Brexit plan is expected to be approved by European Union officials within a few days. But that isn’t the end of it. In the coming months, British and European representatives still have to hash out a trade deal, which may prove just as difficult to negotiate — if not more so — as Brexit itself.