Major U.S. multinational bank Wells Fargo & Company has reported a net loss of 2.4 billion U.S. dollars for the second quarter of 2020, compared with a net income of 6.2 billion dollars for the same period last year.

The company also announced on Tuesday that it expects to reduce its third quarter common stock dividend to 0.10 dollar per share from 0.51 dollar per share, subject to the approval of the company's board of directors at the end of July.

"We are extremely disappointed in both our second quarter results and our intent to reduce our dividend," the company's CEO Charlie Scharf said.

Although the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and many business drivers have been negatively impacted, "our franchise should perform better, and we will make changes to improve our performance regardless of the operating environment," he added.

"Our view of the length and severity of the economic downturn has deteriorated considerably from the assumptions used last quarter, which drove the 8.4 billion U.S. dollars added to our credit loss reserve in the second quarter," Scharf said.

According to the company's chief financial officer John Shrewsberry, the second quarter results also included 1.2 billion dollars of operating losses, primarily due to customer remediation accruals and other expenses caused by the ongoing pandemic.