Weekly Global News Wrap Up: Societe Generale enters Australia; Fed agents question Wells Fargo WM employees

And US SEC awards Merrill Lynch whistleblowers $83m.

From Bloomberg: Societe Generale SA has applied for an Australian banking license as it prepares to restart its onshore lending business, according to a person familiar with the situation. The French bank wound down much of its Australian business in 2010, when it shifted its foreign exchange and commodities trading from Sydney to Hong Kong, giving up its local deposit-taking license a few years later. But Societe Generale retained a Sydney office, and over the past couple of years has gradually been rebuilding its presence.

From Wall Street Journal via CNBC: Federal agents are interviewing employees of Wells Fargo's wealth management division as the government expands its investigation of the bank's sales practices, according to a report Friday in The Wall Street Journal. The report said the FBI has interviewed some employees in the Phoenix area as the Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission expand the scope of an investigation into sales practices beyond Wells Fargo's retail division.

From Reuters: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has awarded a record $83 million to three whistleblowers tied to a 2016 settlement with Bank of America Corp’s Merrill Lynch brokerage unit, the whistleblowers’ attorney said on Monday. The SEC announced the size of the awards on Monday but did not say which case led it to pay two whistleblowers $50 million and a third $33 million.