Wells Fargo Financial closes Canadian operations

CANADA IS SAFE!

Wells Fargo Financial is closing up its Canadian operations and no longer offering consumer loan, the Des Moines based company confimed Friday.

“We have shifted our focus to serving existing real estate, auto, and consumer loan accounts. There will be no change to our customers’ existing account terms and conditions,” the company says on its website:

Wells Fargo Financial had 120 stores in Canada, and approximately 800 Wells Fargo team members in the country will be impacted, said Diana Rodriguez, vice president of communications for Wells Fargo Financial. Des Moines operations of Wells Fargo Financial will not be impacted, she said.

There are approximately 450 Wells Fargo team members who will remain in Canada to service the existing loan portfolio, Rodriguez said.

“Wells Fargo’s loan origination business in Canada has not been generating sufficient financial returns,” she said. “So we’re making the difficult, yet prudent decision to cease originations at this time.”

Rodriguez stressed that it was just Wells Fargo Financial stores affected and other divisions of the bank still have “robust operations” in the country.

The Financial Post reports, however, that U.S.’s fourth largest bank has made several moves out of the Canadian market in recent years.

Wells Fargo “began to withdraw consumer lending from Canada in 2008 at the height of the financial and economic crisis. In November 2008, it decided to exit the indirect auto-lending business,” the newspaper said. “Then, last July, Wells Fargo stopped offering residential mortgages and home-equity loans in Canada.”