Seattle renews contract with Wells Fargo because no other bank wants city’s business

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wells fargo protest

Seattle socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant protests Wells Fargo

More like no other bank wants to deal with socialist councilmember Kshama Sawant and the attacks on Seattle businesses.

From Seattle Times: The city of Seattle will keep banking with Wells Fargo & Co. after it could get no other takers to handle the city’s business.

The City Council in February 2017 voted 9-0 to pull its account from Wells Fargo, saying the city needs a bank that reflects its values.

Council members cited the bank’s investments in the Dakota Access Pipeline, as well as a roiling customer fraud scandal, as their reasons to sever ties with the bank.

Some council members declared their vote as a move to strike a blow against not only Wells Fargo, but “the billionaire class.”

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“Take our government back from the billionaires, back from [President] Trump and from the oil companies,” Councilmember Kshama Sawant said at the time.

The contract was set to expire Dec. 31, but as finance managers for the city searched for arrangements to handle the city’s banking, it got no takers, said Glen Lee, city finance director. That was even after splitting financial services into different contracts to try to attract a variety of bidders, including smaller banks. In the end, there were none at all.

“It became clear this was our best and only course of action,” Lee said of the city’s decision to stick with Wells Fargo after all.

The first sign that it would be hard to make the council’s wish a reality came soon after the vote when Wells Fargo too-hastily informed the city it could sever its ties immediately with no penalty for breaking the contract. The bank even promised to help the city find a new financial partner.

But it quickly became clear how hard that would be as the city reworked its procurement specifications and searched for months.

In the end, the city renewed its contract with Wells Fargo last week, and council members held a public briefing on the signing of the contract in a public work session Monday. The contract ties the city of Seattle and Wells Fargo together for three more years beginning Jan. 1 with two optional one year extensions after that.

The city finance office began briefing the mayor and council about the situation last February as it became clear the city would have no takers no matter how it sliced up the business.

Read the rest of the story here.

DCG

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