NEW YORK — When Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf testifies before a Senate committee hearing Tuesday, it won’t be just his bank under fire for turning friendly branches into high-pressure sales centers. It’ll be the entire industry.

Wells Fargo is in the spotlight now after its employees allegedly opened up to 2 million bank and credit card accounts, transferred customers’ money without telling them and even created fake email addresses to sign people up for online banking in an effort to meet lofty sales goals.

But cross- selling, as it is called, is the lifeblood of the entire retail banking industry. Other banks don’t face allegations of fraud, like Wells Fargo is, but experts say the industry as a whole engages in high-pressure sales tactics. Once customers open a basic savings or checking account, banks give them the hard sell to sign up for even more, whether that’s a credit card or a mortgage or a retirement account.

Overdraft protection was one common tactic, former Wells bankers said, telling customers to open another savings account to put aside money to cover overdrafts even though the customer didn’t have the resources to fund the account. Or getting the customer to open a new credit card just for overdraft protection.

Surveys done last year by consulting firm cg42 showed that roughly 40 percent of Wells Fargo customers asked said their No. 1 complaint was employees’ constant pushing of products the customers did not need or want. But customers at other banks made similar complaints. Of Bank of America customers, 31 percent said they felt overly pressured for products they didn’t want or need. At both Chase and Citigroup, that figure was 27 percent.

While customers complained of overly aggressive sales tactics, none of the other banks has been accused of wrongdoing.

The change in focus for retail banks had been taking place for years, but the financial crisis that began in 2007 and the impact on banks fueled faster change. The Federal Reserve’s cutting interest rates to nearly zero gave the economy a boost during the Great Recession, but it also eviscerated the banks’ ability to earn interest income.


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