Wells Fargo Site Ranked #1 in Technology

Wells Fargo Web Site Ranked #1 in Technology Innovation by Brookings Institution

Wells Fargo & Company’s web site has taken top honors for technological and digital innovation, ranking first out of 68 leading U.S. corporations, according to the Brookings Institution.

The Brookings Institution evaluated nearly two dozen features of digital innovation, including personalization, interactivity, transparency, PDA (personal digital assistant) access, disability access, language translation, number of online services, privacy, security and user feedback. Wells Fargo was ranked above sites belonging to corporations generally considered industry leaders including Google, Apple, Amazon, and Disney.

“As the first major financial institution to offer internet banking, Wells Fargo has a proud history of pioneering in the digital world,” said Jim Smith, executive vice president, Wells Fargo Internet Services Group. “We work very hard to ensure our offerings are user-friendly and innovative. Being ranked number 1 is a great honor, and we’ll continue to listen to our customers to give them the very best experience when they visit Wells Fargo by computer or mobile device.”

Wells Fargo’s top ranking is based, in part, on the many online tools and services it offers customers including:

* My Spending Report with Budget Watch: A free online money management tool that helps customers create a budget in as few as two clicks and monitors their progress throughout the month, so they can identify opportunities to spend less – delivering the information customers need to stay on budget and gain more control of their finances.
* My Savings PlanSM: A free online tool that provides Wells Fargo savings account customers an easy way to save toward a goal, automatically monitoring progress.
* Smarter CreditTM Center: An online resource that provides information and services to help customers be smarter about credit – whether it’s establishing credit for the first time, reducing debt, getting more credit, or managing and protecting credit for the long term.
* Wells Fargo vSafeSM: A personal online safe, which provides a secure place for customers to store copies of documents for handy reference and in case the originals or other copies are lost or destroyed. vSafe is the first storage solution of its kind for retail banking customers from a major financial institution.

For certain kinds of signed or valuable paper documents — such as wills, deeds, trusts, stock certificates, passports and powers of attorney, for example — an electronic copy often does not have the same legal effect as the paper original. It is important for customers to keep and protect their signed or valuable paper documents. If in doubt, it’s best to consult an attorney before destroying any original paper document. However, even when the electronic documents don’t have the same legal effect as originals, many Wells Fargo customers find it handy to have a copy available for reference from any internet connection. In addition, if one of those original documents is inadvertently lost or destroyed, a copy can sometimes be used to help establish the contents of the original.

* Wells Fargo MobileSM Banking: Secure, mobile account access that ensures key banking tasks such as checking account balances, transferring funds between accounts, and paying bills can be done “on the go.” In addition, BlackBerry® smartphone, iPhoneTM and iPod® touch users can download a WF.com icon for “one-click” access to Wells Fargo’s mobile web site. Customers may also choose to send a text message to the short code “93557” (for “WELLS”) to automatically receive their balance within moments.

The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, DC. It is consistently ranked as the most influential, most quoted and most trusted think tank in the U.S.

Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.3 trillion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance through more than 10,400 stores, over 12,000 ATMs and the internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally.

Source: Wells Fargo & Co

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