How does Wells Fargo use AI in auto finance?
Wells Fargo Auto is an indirect lender: it finances cars through a network of nearly 11,000 dealerships, and since May 1, 2025 it has been the preferred purchase-finance provider for Volkswagen and Audi in the US. The public record on AI in this business is thin. What the bank has disclosed is automation: in January 2021 the CFO set a goal of more than 70% automated decisions by 2022, up from 59% in 2020, and in October 2022 head of Auto Tanya Sanders said credit decisioning had reached 70% automation, after two years of improving credit scorecards. Wells Fargo has not named a machine-learning, generative or agentic system specific to auto underwriting, pricing, fraud, servicing or collections. The volume is well documented: per the 2025 10-K, auto originations were $30.5 billion in 2025, up 80% from $16.9 billion, and the portfolio was $50.5 billion at year-end; in Q3 2026 originations rose 15% and average balances 31%. That growth follows years of credit tightening, and it sits on a control record that includes about $80 million of collateral protection insurance (CPI) remediation in 2017, a $1 billion CFPB and OCC settlement in April 2018, and a December 2022 CFPB order that found $1.3 billion of harm across more than 11 million auto accounts, including wrongful repossessions. That order terminated in January 2025. On October 15, 2026 the bank hired Cayetano Gea-Carrasco as head of AI and Data for Consumer Banking and Lending, the segment that includes auto.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
Data as of Oct 21, 2026 · Wells Fargo profile updated Oct 21, 2026 · 30 sources cited on this page · 140 banks profiled on this site · Markdown
How big is Wells Fargo's auto lending business, and how fast is it growing?
Figures as Wells Fargo reports them in filings, earnings releases and on earnings calls. The bank does not report auto results by channel, by AI use or by model.
| Metric | Value | Period | Who reported it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto loan originations | $30.5 billion in 2025, up $13.6 billion or 80% from $16.9 billion in 2024; $17.2 billion in 2023 | Full years 2023 to 2025 | 2025 Form 10-K[5] |
| Auto loans outstanding | $50,487 million at December 31, 2025, up from $42,367 million a year earlier; $28,245 million of the 2025 total had an updated FICO of 740 or above | Year-end 2024 and 2025 | 2025 Form 10-K (credit quality by vintage)[5] |
| Auto loans 30+ days delinquent | 1.52% at end-2025, 2.31% at end-2024, 2.80% at end-2023; gross charge-offs $453 million in 2025 vs $652 million in 2024 | Period-end | 2025 Form 10-K[5] |
| Auto revenue | $341 million, up 33% from a year ago 'due to higher loan balances and wider loan spreads' | Q3 2026 | Q3 2026 earnings release[13] |
| Originations and balances | Originations up 15% from a year ago; average balances up 31% | Q3 2026 | CEO Charlie Scharf, earnings call, October 13, 2026[6] |
| Originations | 'More than doubled from a year ago'; auto revenue up 24% | Q1 2026 | Scharf and CFO Mike Santomassimo, earnings call, April 14, 2026[14] |
| Loan balances | 'Auto lending returned to growth with balances up 19% from the prior year' | Q4 2025 | Scharf, Q4 2025 earnings release[15][16] |
| Portfolio trough | Ending balances 'grew for the first time in over three years'; auto revenue up 2% from Q1, the first linked-quarter increase since Q4 2021 | Q2 2025 | Earnings call, July 15, 2025[17] |
| Revenue low point | Auto revenue down 21% from a year ago, 'driven by lower loan balances, reflecting previous credit tightening actions and continued loan spread compression'; growth in the auto portfolio expected in 2025 | Q4 2024 | Santomassimo, earnings call, January 15, 2025[18] |
| Credit tightening | Balances down 5% at end-2022 and originations down 47% in Q4 2022 on 'credit tightening actions'; a year later the portfolio had declined for seven consecutive quarters, balances down 11% | Q4 2022 and Q4 2023 | Santomassimo, earnings calls[19][7] |
| Earlier baseline | $5.3 billion of originations in Q4 2020, down 22%; $48.2 billion of auto outstandings | Q4 2020 | Santomassimo, reported by Bank Automation News[3] |
What has Wells Fargo built or bought for its dealer lending platform?
Every dated move on the public record, oldest first. The 'what it is' column uses the bank's or the reporter's words; none of these items is described by Wells Fargo as AI.
| Date | Move | What it is | Who |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 25, 2018 | Dealer Services renamed Wells Fargo Auto | A staff memo from Laura Schupbach renamed the unit, named for its dealer and indirect lending, a year after it was beset by regulatory scandals and operational hurdles | Bloomberg[20] |
| January 2021 (Q4 2020 call) | Decision-automation target | Goal to lift decision automation to more than 70% by 2022 from 59% in 2020, 'enhancing the customer experience while improving controls', with investment in the origination system and credit decision tools | CFO Mike Santomassimo[3] |
| July 21, 2021 | Tanya Sanders named head of Wells Fargo Auto | She had led Auto's Transformation team and before that its Underwriting and Fulfillment group; Mike Weinbach credited her with 'laying the foundation for Wells Fargo Auto to leverage more automation and digital capabilities' | Wells Fargo[21] |
| September 1, 2021 | Joined AutoFi's lender network | Shoppers at dealers, digital retailers and online marketplaces on the AutoFi platform get real-time credit decisioning from Wells Fargo and can complete financing online | Wells Fargo and AutoFi[22] |
| October 2022 | 70% automated credit decisioning | Up from 50% in 2021: 'We spent the last two years improving our credit score cards and improving our credit decision automation'; dealer satisfaction surveys improved | Tanya Sanders at Auto Finance Summit[4] |
| September 27, 2023 | Digital dealer and consumer tools | E-signatures adopted in the pandemic, online tools folded into the Wells Fargo app; the aim is a 'more sophisticated and more analytical' business | Tanya Sanders to American Banker[23] |
| September 16, 2024 | Volkswagen Financial Services agreement | Multi-year co-branded deal making Wells Fargo the preferred purchase-finance provider for more than 600 Volkswagen, 300 Audi and 130 Ducati dealerships | VWFS and Wells Fargo[24] |
| May 1, 2025 | VW and Audi financing goes live | Wells Fargo begins as preferred purchase-finance provider; Ducati from April 2026; VWFS keeps servicing contracts it originated before launch | VWFS and Wells Fargo[2] |
| January 14, 2026 | 'Methodically return to broad spectrum lending' | 'With the investments we have made to improve our capabilities, we are now well positioned to methodically return to broad spectrum lending' | CEO Charlie Scharf[16] |
| October 15, 2026 | Head of AI and Data for Consumer Banking and Lending | Cayetano Gea-Carrasco joins to oversee 'the full lifecycle of AI use cases' in the segment, reporting to Saul Van Beurden | Wells Fargo[12] |
What did regulators find in Wells Fargo's auto lending, and what was required?
The collateral protection insurance (CPI) program and the 2022 CFPB order, as the bank, regulators and court reporting describe them.
| Action | What it covered | Auto figures | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wells Fargo CPI remediation plan | CPI policies placed 2012 to 2017; the bank found 'certain external vendor processes and internal controls were inadequate' and had discontinued CPI in September 2016 | About 570,000 customers; about $64 million cash plus $16 million of account adjustments; about 20,000 customers whose CPI costs may have contributed to repossession | July 27, 2017[8] |
| CFPB and OCC consent orders | The mandatory insurance program on auto loans, plus mortgage rate-lock extension fees; remediation plus risk and compliance management requirements | $1 billion penalty, with the OCC's $500 million credited toward it | April 20, 2018[9] |
| Consumer class settlement | Borrowers said they were signed up for auto insurance without knowledge or consent | At least $385 million; the 2017 suit alleged almost 250,000 pushed into delinquency and almost 25,000 repossessions | June 2019[25] |
| Securities class settlement | Investors alleged the bank charged customers for unneeded auto-collision protection insurance and hid the practice from investors | $300 million | February 2023[26] |
| CFPB consent order | 'Systematic failures' in auto servicing: misapplied payments, improper fees and interest, wrongful repossessions, and unrefunded GAP fees when loans ended early | $1.3 billion in harm across more than 11 million accounts; more than $1.3 billion in auto redress, within a $1.7 billion penalty for the whole order | December 20, 2022[10] |
| 2022 order terminated | The seventh Wells Fargo consent order closed since 2019; the CFPB said its Repeat Offender Unit 'is continuing to closely scrutinize the bank' | None disclosed | January 28, 2025[11][27] |
| 2025 10-K risk factor | Still lists 'past practices involving certain automobile collateral protection insurance policies' and the unused portion of GAP agreements as examples of identified customer harm | None disclosed | February 2026[5] |
What has Wells Fargo said about controls in auto lending since the orders, and where is the record silent?
In 2017 the bank said the CPI review led it to 'tighten oversight of third-party vendors in Dealer Services', alongside centralized operations, tighter credit standards and a new structure; Franklin Codel, then head of Consumer Lending, said 'We take full responsibility for our failure to appropriately manage the CPI program.' In September 2023 Sanders declined to comment directly on the 2022 CFPB order but said her division's top priority was improving its risk and control systems, and that 'all of the investment that we're doing, and the transformation work that we're putting into this business, helps to solve a lot of the legacy issues that have been highlighted.'[8][23]
Reporting the termination, Banking Dive quoted Scharf's January 2025 earnings-call remarks: 'Our operational risk and compliance infrastructure is greatly changed from when I arrived, and while we are not done, I'm confident that we will successfully complete the work required in our consent orders.' Per the bureau, Banking Dive added, Wells Fargo had implemented fixes since 2020, but the CFPB still issued the order.[28]
At the enterprise level, the 2025 10-K says Wells Fargo uses AI 'to help improve efficiency and further inform or automate certain business decisions, operations, and risk management practices', and warns that AI outputs may be 'incorrect, deficient or biased' and that the limited transparency of some models makes outputs hard to explain. It does not tie those statements to auto lending.[5]
What is not on the record: Wells Fargo has not published which models score or price auto applications, whether any are machine-learning models, how dealer-channel fraud is screened, or whether AI is used in auto servicing or collections. It has published no fairness testing or auto-specific AI results. The one automated-system finding in the 2022 CFPB order, a faulty automated filter that froze more than 1 million accounts, concerned deposit accounts, not auto loans. The 70% automation figure is the bank's own, reported at a 2022 trade conference; no later figure appears in the releases or earnings calls reviewed for this page.[10][4]
What does the Wells Fargo profile record on this topic?
The rows below are the entries of the Wells Fargo AI strategy profile that bear on this page, as of Oct 21, 2026; the profile holds the full record of 44 dated moves, 17 use cases and 60 sources.
| Use case | What the record shows | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automated auto credit decisioning (dealer channel) | Credit scorecards and decision tools in the indirect auto origination system decide about 70% of applications automatically (October 2022); Wells Fargo describes this as decision automation and has not said whether the scorecards use machine learning. | In production | [4][3] |
| Date | Move | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 20, 2025 | Van Beurden named head of AI | Santos and Van Beurden become co-CEOs of consumer banking and lending. | [29][30] |
| Dec 20, 2022 | CFPB order over auto loan servicing | The CFPB finds 'systematic failures' in auto servicing (misapplied payments, improper fees and interest, wrongful repossessions, unrefunded GAP fees) that caused $1.3 billion in harm across more than 11 million accounts, and orders more than $1.3 billion in auto redress within a $1.7 billion penalty for the whole order. | [10] |
| Oct 28, 2022 | Wells Fargo Auto reaches 70% automated credit decisioning | Head of Auto Tanya Sanders told the Auto Finance Summit that credit decisioning had reached 70% automation, up from 50% in 2021, after two years of 'improving our credit score cards and improving our credit decision automation', per Bank Automation News; no machine-learning or AI system is named. | [4] |
| Sep 1, 2021 | Real-time auto credit decisioning on AutoFi | Wells Fargo joins AutoFi's lender network: shoppers at dealers, digital retailers and online marketplaces on the platform get real-time credit decisioning from Wells Fargo and can complete financing online. | [22] |
Does Wells Fargo use AI to approve auto loans?
The bank describes automation, not AI. CFO Mike Santomassimo set a goal in January 2021 of more than 70% automated auto decisions by 2022, up from 59% in 2020, through investment in the origination system and credit decision tools. In October 2022 head of Auto Tanya Sanders said credit decisioning had reached 70% automation, up from 50% in 2021, after two years of improving credit scorecards. Wells Fargo has not said whether those scorecards or decision tools use machine learning, and has not named an AI model in its auto business.
How big is Wells Fargo's auto loan portfolio?
Per the 2025 Form 10-K, auto loans outstanding were $50,487 million at December 31, 2025, up from $42,367 million a year earlier, and originations were $30.5 billion in 2025, up 80% from $16.9 billion in 2024. The 30-day delinquency rate fell to 1.52% from 2.31%. Growth continued in 2026: originations more than doubled in Q1, and in Q3 originations rose 15% and average balances 31% from a year earlier, with Q3 auto revenue of $341 million, up 33%.
What was the Wells Fargo collateral protection insurance scandal?
Wells Fargo bought physical-damage insurance (CPI) for auto borrowers from a vendor when it had no evidence they already had the coverage their contracts required. In July 2017 it said it had reviewed policies placed from 2012 to 2017, found inadequate vendor processes and internal controls, and would pay about $80 million to roughly 570,000 customers, including about 20,000 whose CPI costs may have contributed to repossession. The CFPB and OCC followed in April 2018 with a $1 billion penalty covering the CPI program and mortgage rate-lock fees. A consumer class settlement of at least $385 million followed in 2019.
What did the 2022 CFPB order say about Wells Fargo auto loans, and is it still in force?
On December 20, 2022 the CFPB found 'systematic failures' in Wells Fargo's auto loan servicing that caused $1.3 billion in harm across more than 11 million accounts: misapplied payments, improper fees and interest, wrongful repossessions and unrefunded GAP fees. It ordered more than $1.3 billion in auto redress as part of $2 billion-plus in total redress and a $1.7 billion penalty. Wells Fargo said on January 28, 2025 that the order had terminated; the CFPB said its Repeat Offender Unit was still scrutinizing the bank.
Who runs Wells Fargo Auto and its AI work?
Tanya Sanders was named head of Wells Fargo Auto in July 2021, having led the unit's transformation and its underwriting and fulfillment group; she was still quoted in that role in May 2025. AI for the consumer businesses sits with Saul Van Beurden, head of Enterprise AI and co-CEO of Consumer Banking and Lending, and, from October 15, 2026, Cayetano Gea-Carrasco, head of AI and Data for Consumer Banking and Lending, who reports to Van Beurden. Neither has described an auto-specific AI program publicly.
- Auto financing: what to know about new and used car loans
- Volkswagen Financial Services U.S. and Wells Fargo launch agreement for purchase financing of Volkswagen and Audi vehicles in the United States
- Wells Fargo looks to increase vehicle loan automation
- Wells Fargo Auto credit decisioning reaches 70% automation
- Wells Fargo & Company 2025 Annual Report (Form 10-K, Exhibit 13): risk factors
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q4 2023 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo Announces Plan to Remediate Customers for Auto Insurance Coverage
- Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Announces Settlement With Wells Fargo For Auto-Loan Administration and Mortgage Practices
- CFPB Orders Wells Fargo to Pay $3.7 Billion for Widespread Mismanagement of Auto Loans, Mortgages, and Deposit Accounts
- Wells Fargo's 2022 CFPB Consent Order Terminates
- Wells Fargo Deepens AI and Data Leadership for Consumer Banking and Lending
- Wells Fargo Reports Third Quarter 2026 Net Income of $6.0 billion, or $1.87 per Diluted Share
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q1 2026 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo Reports Fourth Quarter 2025 Financial Results
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q4 2025 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q2 2025 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q4 2024 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo (WFC) Q4 2022 earnings call transcript
- Wells Fargo, Seeking Fresh Start, Renames Beleaguered Auto Unit
- Wells Fargo Names Tanya Sanders to Lead Auto Business
- Wells Fargo and AutoFi Team up to Provide Car Buyers and Dealers with Fast and Easy Online Sales and Financing
- The Most Powerful Women to Watch: No. 14, Tanya Sanders, Wells Fargo
- Volkswagen Financial Services U.S. and Wells Fargo announce cooperation agreement for vehicle purchase financing of Volkswagen, Audi, and Ducati brands in the United States
- Wells Fargo to pay $385 million to settle auto insurance scam
- Wells Fargo to pay $300 million to settle car insurance lawsuit
- Wells Fargo's regulatory burden eases further as CFPB terminates 2022 punishment
- Wells Fargo released from 2022 CFPB consent order
- Wells Fargo Names Saul Van Beurden to Lead Artificial Intelligence
- Wells Fargo taps head of consumer banking to lead on AI
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