Federal Reserve press conference, 2016-09-21 — Chair Janet Yellen

Question (Rebecca Jarvis, ABC News): Does it concern you, given what Donald Trump has said at this point about the Federal Reserve, that he could go back, if he were President, and look at the minutes and look for signs of the Fed being politically motivated and find them?
Answer: I have no concern that the pol—the Fed is politically motivated, and I will assure that you will not find any signs of political motivation when the transcripts are released in five years. We—I—it is important that we maintain the confidence of the public, and I do believe that we deserve it. I know that these are difficult decisions, and everybody may not agree with them, but I hope the public will understand that we’re striving to do our best to pursue these goals that do matter to all of us.

Question (Peter Barnes, Fox Business): Chair Yellen, over here. Hi. Quick question on regulation and the scandal at Wells Fargo over phony customer accounts. I know that there are other regulators that have looked into this, but you are also a regulator of Wells Fargo. Have—has the Fed opened a separate investigation into this—these practices at Wells Fargo? And—and wouldn’t you, because they do involve issues of consumer protection, potentially of risk management and corporate governance, and are you looking at them broadly across the banking system right now?
Answer: So, in this specific case, the abuses that occurred took place in a national bank. The Comptroller of the Currency has responsibility there. And on the consumer side, it is the CFPB that has responsibility, but we work cooperatively and closely with those organizations. And in terms of our overall supervisory responsibility for Wells and other large banking organizations, we are very focused, and this will be a particular focus of our supervision going forward over the next year or so on the compliance environment to make sure that the controls, that the senior management oversight, that the involvement of the boards of directors are appropriate to control these kinds of risks. We have been distressed to see banking organizations responding when a particular problem arises, and what we’d really want to see is robust procedures that ensure that employees are always acting in a legal and ethical manner, and that the incentives that are put in place in these organizations are appropriate and don’t serve to foster behavior that could harm the public. And this has been and will be a focus of our supervision.