Oct. 11--Wachovia Corp. has agreed to pay $200 million to settle lawsuits over its alleged role in telemarketing schemes that resulted in the loss of more than $160 million by at least 900,000 consumers.

The proposed civil settlement, of which $163 million will go to consumers, was filed yesterday in federal court in Philadelphia. It builds on an agreement Wachovia reached in April with federal bank regulators.

The government said then that bank officials, including some in Philadelphia, had engaged in a "pattern of misconduct" and had failed to conduct "suitable due diligence" on Wachovia accounts of companies that processed payments for telemarketers.

Under that settlement, Wachovia was ordered to put $125 million into a restitution fund. Victims were required to file for a refund, which typically results in low participation.

The new settlement provides automatic compensation and requires that it be mailed directly to the consumers, said Howard Langer, a partner at the Philadelphia law firm Langer, Grogan & Diver P.C. and lead attorney in the two cases against Wachovia.

The class-action settlement, negotiated in August, before Wachovia's survival came into doubt, also boosted the amount of restitution by at least $35 million and did not limit what Wachovia, the biggest bank by market share in the Philadelphia area, might have to pay.

Wachovia, subject of a takeover battle between Citigroup Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. that ended Thursday with Wells Fargo as the winner, denied in court documents that it was liable for the alleged claims.

"We regret that this situation occurred, and we're pleased the matter is resolved," Wachovia spokeswoman Christy Phillips-Brown said.

The agreement covered two lawsuits spurred by a 2006 case brought by the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia against a Bucks County company, Payment Processing Centers L.L.C., that printed special checks that do not need a signature.

Telemarketers who call consumers to directly pitch goods and services use PPC and other payment processors to collect money. Telemarketers are prohibited from using consumers' credit cards by federal rules designed to reduce fraud.

In such cases, telemarketers -- who might tell a consumer she was eligible for a $5,000 government grant for a $298 fee -- would persuade her to give her bank's routing number and account number. The telemarketers then sent that information to a payment processor, such as PPC in Newtown.

PPC then printed checks on customers' accounts and deposited them in its Wachovia account.