Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan Faces An Angry Congress

(CBS SF / CNN) -- Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan says that the bank's problems are fixed and its customer abuses are a thing of the past. But his contentious hearing in front of the House Financial Services committee indicates that Wells Fargo isn't out of the dog house yet.

Sloan faced a bipartisan grilling on Tuesday. Chairman Maxine Waters, a Democrat, said Sloan hasn't been able to keep Wells Fargo out of trouble. She asked if the bank should be "downsized."

"Is Wells Fargo simply too big to manage?" Waters asked.

"No, we're not," Sloan responded.

Ranking member Patrick McHenry, a Republican, also displayed frustration. He asked Sloan if the scandals were over, or if more negative headlines would surface.

"I can't control the media," Sloan said. "There's nothing else that I'm aware of that we haven't disclosed."

Sloan tried to convince Congress that Wells Fargo has abandoned the aggressive sales tactics that led to the creation of millions of fake accounts and other issues, such as charging thousands of customers for auto insurance they didn't need and imposing unwarranted mortgage fees on homeowners.

"Our corporate culture has substantially improved," he said in his opening remarks.

Sloan outlined leadership shakeups at the company and new measures aimed at curtailing risk, while conceding that the bank has more work to do.

"Doing right does not stop with simply repairing harm and rebuilding trust," he said.

His assurances seem unlikely to ease political pressure on the bank. Many of the representatives who questioned Sloan said they have constituents who were harmed by Wells Fargo's scandals.

The bank remains embroiled in legal trouble on the federal and state level, and there's impatience with the pace of its restitution and turnaround efforts.

And the Federal Reserve has not yet removed the unprecedented asset cap it placed on Wells Fargo in early 2018 for "widespread consumer abuse." This keeps the bank from expanding.

© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.