The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Wells Fargo have reached a settlement of $3.7 billion over the bank's treatment of its customers.

Some of Wells Fargo's misdeeds against its customers occurred as recently as this year, and the company has settled with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for $3.7 billion related to abuses including checking accounts, mortgages, and auto loans.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said that a record $1.7 billion civil penalty would be levied against the company, in addition to more than $2 billion in restitution to 16 million affected account holders. Bank of America, headquartered in San Francisco, released a separate statement saying that many of the "necessary measures" related to the settlement had been performed.

According to the statement issued by the regulatory body, "the bank's illegal activity led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of customers, the loss of vehicle and home." "The bank improperly charged fees and interest to customers' auto and mortgage loans, improperly repossessed customers' vehicles, and improperly applied customer payments to customers' auto and mortgage debts," the complaint reads.

As the CFPB's report makes clear, Wells Fargo's customer service issues predated the 2016 crisis involving millions of phony accounts. Wells Fargo, the fourth largest U.S. bank by assets, caters mostly to middle-class Americans since, in contrast to JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, it has a far smaller presence on Wall Street.

There have been some of such problems up until quite recently. A compliance decree states that from "at least 2011 through 2022," the bank made errors involving auto loan payments and other matters, some of which resulted in unlawful repossessions of vehicles. In addition, the CFPB claims that beginning in 2011 and continuing through 2018 the bank committed mistakes on mortgage modification applications.