NEW YORK – Wells Fargo’s (WFC) chief executive is saying the bank remains “deeply sorry” for its sales tactics and that a year since the scandal over it exploded, it has substantially changed for the better. The comments from Tim Sloan come ahead of his scheduled appearance in front of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. The testimony occurs about a year since his predecessor did the same and was grilled about the sales practices that led to millions of accounts being opened by Wells Fargo employees without customers’ permission. The bank has paid $185 million in fines and has agreed to pay $242 million in a class action settlement. Sloan’s predecessor, John Stumpf, testified twice in front of Congress last fall. His poor performance was widely chastised, and the scandal led to his ouster. In Sloan’s prepared comments, released on Monday, he said: “When my predecessor testified here last year, we had not fully grappled with the damage the sales practices scandal had done to our customers, our team members, and their trust in the bank. We came to Congress without a good plan and all of you were right to criticize us. But I heard you — and I…