Wells Fargo settles mortgage claims with U.S. government for under $1 billion: FT

Wells Fargo & Co , the fourth-largest U.S. bank, has settled claims with a U.S. government agency over bad mortgages the bank sold ahead of the financial crisis, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The San Francisco bank paid less than $1 billion to resolve claims from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the overseer of government-backed mortgage enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.

A Wells Fargo spokesman and the government agency declined to comment. The settlement was governed by a confidentiality agreement, the Financial Times said.

The bank said in a securities filing in the first quarter of 2013 that it had settled certain mortgage-backed securities claims with Fannie Mae out of previously established reserves, though it did not specify additional terms of the settlement.

(Reporting by Peter Rudegeair in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)