Barclays chief compliance officer Roemer quits for Wells Fargo

By Carolyn Cohn and Roopal Verma

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays' chief compliance officer Michael Roemer is leaving to take up the same role at U.S. bank Wells Fargo, the two banks said on Thursday.

Roemer will leave Barclays at the end of this month, the British bank said in a statement, while Wells Fargo said in a separate statement he would join the U.S. firm in January 2018.

"Hiring a leader with Mike's credentials is an important step in our commitment to building a stronger compliance function and a better Wells Fargo," Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan said.

The San Francisco-based bank is the third-largest U.S. bank by assets.

U.S. senators last week slammed Sloan for his handling of a massive sales practices scandal, in which Wells Fargo employees potentially created as many as 3.5 million accounts without authorisation. Roemer, who joined Barclays in 2012, has dealt with a string of regulatory issues during his tenure.

These included reforming practices in the bank's markets division following its involvement in the Libor rate-rigging scandal and an ongoing investigation into the lender's chief executive Jes Staley over attempts to unmask a whistleblower.

Laura Padovani, currently Barclays' head of global compliance services, will act as interim group chief compliance officer following Roemer's departure, Barclays said, adding it plans an internal and external search for his successor.

Wells Fargo is due to report third-quarter results on Friday.

(Additional reporting by Anjuli Davies and Emma Rumney; Editing by Kirstin Ridley and Adrian Croft)