Sloan was chief financial officer under Stumpf, and was not a popular choice as CEO. While Sloan said he had no knowledge of the bank's bad practices, many experts felt Wells needed someone from the outside to help clean up its act.
Federal regulators lost patience with Wells Fargo's continued bad behavior and inflicted harsh punishments. Wells had to pay a $1 billion fine to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. But more importantly, the Federal Reserve stepped in and handcuffed Wells' ability to grow its business until the bank could prove that it had gotten its house in order.
"I have focused on leading a process to address past issues and to rebuild trust for the future," Sloan said in a statement Thursday. "We have made progress in many areas ... and there remains more work to be done."
The bank has also drawn the ire of politicians on both sides of the aisle. Sloan was a favorite target of Senator Elizabeth Warren, who crusaded against Wall Street and the big banks as a senator from Massachusetts and continues to do so in her campaign for the presidency in 2020.
"About damn time. Tim Sloan should have been fired a long time ago," Warren said on Twitter.