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STORY: The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hit Wells Fargo with the watchdog's largest ever civil penalty on Tuesday -- part of a $3.7 billion agreement to settle charges over widespread mismanagement of car loans, mortgages and bank accounts.

The consumer watchdog ordered the bank to pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty, and another $2 billion to more than 16 million customer accounts... for illegally charging fees on auto loans and mortgages, wrongly repossessing cars, and imposing illegal surprise overdraft fees, according to the CFPB. 

"So what happened is a lot of the record keeping was poor. And when the record keeping was poor, the bank made aggressive actions to fine, to sometimes evict, or sell properties, or repossess vehicles, when in fact they were not eligible to do so, right? It was their bad record keeping."

Max Wolff - CEO of Systemic Ventures - says while the bank can absorb the multi-billion dollar fine—it will still sting. 

" So is it existential for Wells Fargo? The answer is clearly no. In other words, it doesn't imperil the survival of the bank or its ability to continue to do business It is big enough, though, to show up on the radar as a penalty that means these things are not worth sort of indulging in the bank. // And so I think in the age of the trillion dollar banks, of which this is one, you need a larger fine, otherwise doesn't have much of prophylactic value for the public because a fine that's a minor mention and a gain that's a major win, it doesn't really make for the right behavioral signal." 

Wells Fargo said the settlement will resolve issues that have been outstanding for several years, and noted in a statement it has "accelerated corrective actions and remediation" since 2020.

The fine for Wells Fargo is the latest in a series of actions that underscore the CFPB's more aggressive posture under President Joe Biden's administration.