In 2016, the bank was order to pay $185 million in fines and penalties after investigators found Wells Fargo employees opened as many as 2 million unauthorized accounts without customer authorization. The following year Wells Fargo announced that an outside review uncovered an additional 1.4 million potentially bogus accounts, bringing the total to 3.5 million.
Both Quigley and Duke were scheduled to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday. It wasn't immediately clear if they are still expected to testify. Last week, Democrats on that committee released an investigative report called "The Real Wells Fargo: Board & Management Failures, Consumer Abuses and Ineffective Regulatory Oversight."
According to the report's executive summary, Wells Fargo was slow to "correct serious deficiencies in its infrastructure for managing risks to consumers."
It continues: "As a result, Wells Fargo's customers have been exposed to countless abuses, including racial discrimination, wrongful foreclosure, illegal vehicle repossession, and fraudulently opened accounts."
The report also highlighted a 2017 remark from Duke in which she appeared to raise questions about why she was being included on messages from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau requesting that Wells Fargo take certain actions to improve bank operations.
"Why are you sending it to me, the board, rather than the department manager?" asked Duke, who was then vice chair of the bank's board, according to the House report.
In a joint statement, Duke and Quigley said they were stepping down from their posts to "avoid distraction" and allow Charles Scharf, who was named CEO and president of Wells Fargo in September, the "ability to turn the page."
"Out of continued loyalty to Wells Fargo and ongoing commitment to serve our customers and employees, we recommended to our colleagues on the Board that we step down from our leadership roles and they have accepted our resignation from the Board. We believe that our decision will facilitate the bank's and the new CEO's ability to turn the page and avoid distraction that could impede the bank's future progress," Duke and Quigley said in the statement.