NEW YORK (AP) -- Newly appointed Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan has told employees that he is "sorry for the pain" that the bank's employees have felt as a result of the company's sales practices scandal.
Sloan's company-wide speech given Tuesday is the latest effort by Wells Fargo's executives to atone for the fact that the bank's employees, pushed by impossible sales goals, opened as many as 2 million bank and credit card accounts without customers' authorization.
In the speech, Sloan acknowledged that the bank did not respond to the problems in its branches soon enough and that upper management dodged responsibility for the bad behavior and wrongly placed blamed on its branch employees.
The speech comes as Wells is also rolling out a new ad campaign to address the scandal.