Wells Fargo got its capital constraints relaxed by the Federal Reserve, so the bank can boost lending to small businesses amid COVID-19 crisis.
Last weekend, Wells had capped its lending to small business to $10 billion under the Paycheck Protection Program. The threshold was set by the bank so it could maintain the asset requirement that the Fed had imposed on it February 2018 after finding it guilty of setting up unauthorized accounts.
“Due to the extraordinary disruptions from the coronavirus,” the Fed said in a statement, “it will temporarily and narrowly modify the growth restriction on Wells Fargo so that it can provide additional support to small businesses.”