Charles Scharf, chief executive officer of Wells Fargo & Co., listens during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2020. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Charles Scharf, Wells Fargo & Co.'s new CEO for the past four months, told a congressional panel Tuesday that the company has centralized its compliance work, made it independent of business units and added some 3,300 people to its compliance staff.

Scharf disappointed many members of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services by refusing to put a timeline on bringing the bank into full compliance with five government consent orders related to various scandals, including one creating millions of fake bank accounts.

"It is important that we are honest with ourselves about the scope of our challenges," Scharf said in written remarks and repeated essentially the same information in his oral testimony. "We will put all available resources toward ensuring that we operate with the strongest possible operational, risk, and control infrastructure. We are fully committed to completing all of our work, but this will take time."

He vowed that the San Francisco-based bank would "prioritize the work outlined by regulators [in the consent agreements] above all else."

His testimony was part of three House hearings, this one titled "Holding Wells Fargo Accountable: CEO Perspectives on Next Steps for the Bank That Broke America's Trust." It also was in response to the committee's scathing report released last week on Wells Fargo's failure to comply with the five consent orders since 2016.

Scharf said he is in the process of turning the bank's compliance failures around.

In an effort to change the culture, he said he has hired several key executives from outside the company and intends to hire two more. The new hires include a new chief operating officer and a new head of public affairs.

One of his two future outside hires will likely be a new general counsel. Former general counsel James Strother, who has been civilly charged by federal regulators for failing to halt phony bank accounts, retired in 2017. He is fighting the charges.

Strother's replacement, Allen Parker, is leaving at the end of this month after taking heavy criticism for moving too slowly on reforms. Wells Fargo deputy general counsel Douglas Edwards is serving as acting general counsel until Scharf names a new head of legal affairs.

In June 2018, before Scharf's arrival, Wells Fargo had already replaced chief risk officer Michael Loughlin with Amanda Norton, formerly of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Loughlin also was civilly charged by regulators and agreed to pay a $1.25 million penalty.

In January the bank hired attorney Price Sloan as chief strategic enterprise risk officer. Sloan, a financial services industry veteran with extensive legal and risk management experience, reports to Norton.

Earlier in 2018, the bank replaced its chief compliance officer, bringing in Michael Roemer from Barclays.

Scharf told the House committee that he has changed the bank's risk and compliance infrastructure. The bank historically had a decentralized, federated compliance model, with compliance staff reporting to the business units they oversaw, he said.

Now he has centralized compliance under a new position, the chief operating officer. He brought in Scott Powell, formerly CEO of Santander Holdings USA Inc., to fill the role. Powell oversees the strategic execution and operations office to provide centralized oversight and to facilitate a coordinated response to risk and compliance issues.

Powell has the authority to execute on the company's regulatory commitments, build the strongest possible operational standards and governance, and deliver consistent, high-quality customer service.

Scharf described how he also has made risk and control an independent function, reporting to the chairman of the board of directors and participating in the bank's operating committee. There is still a tier of risk officers embedded in the businesses, he said, but they no longer report to those business units.

Scharf spoke often of "urgency" with respect to compliance measures, and of doing what is right by customers.

In her opening statement, committee chairwoman Maxine Waters called Wells Fargo "a lawless organization that has caused widespread harm to millions of consumers throughout the nation."

Waters and other panel members tried to push Scharf to commit to specific remediation measures for harmed consumers, but he would say only, "I assure you that we will complete all remediation of customers we have harmed."

Others pushed for commitments such as not to lend to gun manufacturers, or not to take on any new acquisitions, or to raise minimum pay across the board, or to withhold dividend payments until the economic threats from the coronavirus have passed. But again he promised only to look at their issues.

The next hearing, "Holding Wells Fargo Accountable: Examining the Role of the Board of Directors in the Bank's Egregious Patter of Consumer Abuses," is scheduled to start 10 a.m. Wednesday.

Scheduled witnesses are Elizabeth "Betsy" Duke, former board chairwoman, and board member James Quigley. Both Duke and Quigley resigned Monday in the wake of the House report when Waters called for their resignations.