Mubasher: Wells Fargo would pay $65 million to settle claims of misleading investors about its “cross-selling” business strategy.

The US bank failed to inform investors that the success of its cross-selling was based on sales practice misconduct, the New York Attorney General’s office said.

“The misconduct at Wells Fargo was widespread across the bank and at every level of management – impacting both customers and investors who were misled,” New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said in a statement.

Wells Fargo had previously accrued the penalty costs, the bank said in a statement.

In early September, the US Justice Department reportedly conducted a federal investigation on whether the lender’s wholesale banking division staff committed fraud.

This followed claims that Wells Fargo’s employees improperly changed and added information to documents of clients without their knowledge.

Before that, Wells Fargo agreed to pay a fine of $2.09 billion for knowingly issuing mortgage loans that contained false income information, which contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008.