Tomorrow, Wells Fargo is announcing enhancements to its CEO Mobile service, a browser-based mobile banking service for its corporate banking customers that remains unique among major financial institutions in the US. Users of CEO Mobile can now initiate and approve federal tax wires and see which self administration dual control items they can act on from their mobile devices.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson recently interviewed Stephanie Sturgis-Griffin, the newly named CEO of Pariter Solutions, the Wells Fargo and Bank of America joint venture for ACH processing announced in May. According to the announcement press release, Pariter will be “the country’s largest processor of ACH payments."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo Financial National Bank, a subsidiary of Wells Fargo & Company, has launched a new revolving consumer credit card program for the jewelry industry called Wells Fargo Jewelry Advantage. The new credit card program offers "jewelry retailers prompt, automated decisions and easy-to-use online processing and reporting."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has begun rolling out its new vSafe service to customers in 18 states – Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming – and the Greater Sacramento area. The vSafe service was announced in March and has been undergoing internal testing since that time. With the new service, "customers can protect and easily access electronic copies of financial, legal and personal files, such as loan and tax documents, wills, passports, medical records, photographs and more, in a safe online location."   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook’s Carol Coye Benson interviewed Steve Ellis, NACHA Chairman, recently about the use of ACH to access consumer checking accounts and NACHA's Secure Vault Payments initiative. Read on for her full report.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo -- saying it is "the only provider of browser-based mobile banking for commercial customers" -- has announced the addition of wire transfer services and image positive pay functionality to its CEO Mobile service.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo and Bank of America have announced the formation of a joint venture to operate a single, combined automated clearinghouse (ACH) platform for both companies and their clients. The new entity, called Pariter Solutions LLC, will be the country's largest processor of ACH payments.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced it is 'offering consumers a $250 incentive for the purchase of new residential photovoltaic solar energy systems, hosting a sweepstake to encourage customers to bank online, and expanding its Wells Fargo Rewards program to include a line of eco-friendly options.'   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it will 'offer proprietary single-use accounts to its commercial card customers for business-to-business (B2B) purchases. Both Visa and MasterCard commercial card customers will be able to use the pre-approved accounts that reduce fraud and control spending.'   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced the Wells Fargo vSafe service, calling it "the first online storage solution from a financial institution that lets retail banking customers store and organize copies of important materials, such as financial statements, loan and tax documents, wills, passports, and birth, marriage and death certificates."   » Continue Reading

Adaptive Path's Jesse James Garrett interviews Wells Fargo's Secil Tabli Watson, senior vice president of Internet channel strategy at Wells Fargo Bank, about user-centered design and experience at Wells Fargo. Watson will be speaking at Adaptive Path's upcoming MX San Francisco conference being held April 21-22.

Wells Fargo has received the Barlow Research Monarch Innovation "Most Innovative Product" Award for its newest small business checking account product -- Merchant Checking. Described as an "industry first financial package, Merchant Checking combines the convenience of a business checking account with the ability to accept credit and debit card payments at a flat, low, discounted rate."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it has "extended its Foreign Exchange Online service to small businesses. This service allows businesses to send and receive foreign currency wires in more than 90 currencies using an internet connection."   » Continue Reading

Barron's cover story this weekend by Mark Veverka is all about Well Fargo. "Unlike most of its peers that have been badly dinged, the San Francisco-based bank doesn't have a big capital-markets operation exposed to credit derivatives, structured-investment vehicles, or mortgage-backed securities. It isn't slowed by a huge book of subprime residential-mortgage loans, and its balance sheet can withstand more bullets than most."

Barlow Research has announced that Bank of America, SunTrust and Wells Fargo are winners of Barlow's Monarch Innovation Awards for their innovative products, features and service enhancements. Bank of America won the Overall Most Innovative award for its Easy Online Payroll and the Most Innovative Customer Service Enhancement award for its Online Text Chat Service. SunTrust won the Innovative Feature Award for its Fraud Inspector solution. Wells Fargo won the Most Innovative Product award for its Wells Fargo Merchant Checking account.   » Continue Reading

In a post titled "Wells Fargo: Hitching its Reins to Mobile Banking", Brandon McGee writes for the Mobile Money & Banking blog about Wells Fargo's rollout of mobile banking services. McGee writes: "what captured my attention is that Wells Fargo seems to have strategically positioned themselves as the leader in mobile banking."

Wells Fargo has announced what it calls "another component of its Wells Fargo Mobile service: text banking. This addition makes Wells Fargo the first major financial services company in the country to offer its consumer and small business customers both browser- and text-based account access via their mobile devices." Wells Fargo has posted an FAQ on the new Wells Fargo Mobile text banking service.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo Merchant Services has published a useful guide for merchants on how they can ensure they are achieving the best interchange rates on their payment card acceptance. The guide, "The Merchant’s Guide To Achieving Better Interchange Rates" can be downloaded online.

The Sunday San Francisco Chronicle business section included an interview with John Stumpf, president and CEO of Wells Fargo & Co.

Wells Fargo Merchant Services LLC and Discover Financial Services have announced "an agreement to offer full-service processing for all Discover transactions through Wells Fargo Merchant Services LLC. Under the agreement, Wells Fargo Merchant Services LLC customers will now enjoy seamless card payment processing for a broader range of payment options at the point of sale."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced "the latest addition to its mobile banking services, Wells Fargo Mobile for small businesses, a browser-based solution that gives small business owners nationwide access to their business and personal financial information at anytime, from anywhere."   » Continue Reading

Ryan Kim writes for the San Francisco Chronicle's business section about mobile banking - "Wells Fargo is the latest bank to add mobile service, following Citibank, Bank of America, Wachovia and SunTrust, all of which started similar services in the past few months. Most of the country's top 20 banks are either offering the service or trying it out."

Wells Fargo has launched Wells Fargo Mobile - "a browser- based mobile banking solution, available to all of its customers nationwide. With this new service, Wells Fargo allows its customers to access their Wells Fargo financial relationship through a web browser on their mobile device." The bank is using a new URL: http://wf.com for access to the mobile service.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that "Wells Fargo ExpressSend customers with qualifying accounts now can have transaction fees discounted or waived and have more choices in how they remit money to Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, China, Vietnam, India and the Philippines."   » Continue Reading

As announced last week, Visa and Wells Fargo are testing mobile NFC-based payments. Mary Catherine O'Connor writes for RFID Journal about the testing and provides more specifics on the test plans.

Wells Fargo's Board of Directors has named John G. Stumpf, President and Chief Operating Officer, to be the Company's Chief Executive Officer effective immediately. Stumpf, who retains the title of President, succeeds Dick Kovacevich, who continues as Chairman.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo and Visa USA have announced the launch of an "extensive mobile pilot to test consumer mobile payments and services. The pilot has three phases to help Wells Fargo and Visa better understand how consumers will use mobile payment and service options on mobile devices equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) technology."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced Wells Fargo Merchant Checking - an account for small business that combines "the convenience of a full-service business checking account with fast and secure credit and debit card processing at a flat, low discount rate. Merchant Checking allows small business owners to begin accepting credit and debit card payments and have access to funds as soon as the next business day in the associated business checking account - simultaneously meeting two core business needs."   » Continue Reading

Forrester has published a new report about how Wells Fargo's Internet Services Group "used Web site metrics, customer survey data, and internal search information to develop a home page steeped in analytics, not opinions. Forrester sat down with Stephanie Smith, senior vice president and head of online sales and marketing, and Brett Pitts, manager of the ISG's Web channel management to discuss the Web site launch and its results to date."

Wells Fargo has announced the launch of Returned Item & Deposit Details, an enhancement to its Wells Fargo Business Online Banking service. According to the bank, "with this rollout, Wells Fargo is one of the first major U.S. financial institutions to offer small- to mid-sized business customers access to electronic images of returned items, as well as an array of other electronic images, including cleared checks and deposited checks - as part of its online banking service."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced its CEO Mobile service to a select group of customers, saying it has become "the first major U.S. financial services company to offer mobile service for businesses."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced it will begin providing advice and solutions to small business owners through a new small business webcast series. "Airing May 1, 2007, the Protecting Your Business webcast kicks off the company's Small Business Appreciation Month. The interactive webcast will feature leading industry experts who will offer relevant and practical advice for small business owners on protecting the physical and virtual assets of their businesses."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it is "the first U.S. financial institution to make clean, renewable energy reward options available to its cardholders. Through Wells Fargo Rewards programs, consumer and business credit card and check card customers can now redeem reward points to support renewable energy projects and receive certificates for their donations."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card -- calling it "a special credit card product only for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage customers who want to pay down their mortgage faster, build equity quicker and potentially save thousands of dollars on mortgage interest."   » Continue Reading

Greg Farrell writes for USA TODAY about Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich - saying he "may well be the best banker you've never heard of." The focus on cross-sell at Wells Fargo has been relentless - Kovacevich says "the cost to us of selling a product to an existing customer is only about 10% of selling the same product to a new customer."

Netbanker's Jim Bruene blogs about a new cell phone protection plan introduced by Wells Fargo - pay your cell phone bill automatically using a Wells Fargo credit card and receive insurance in the event the phone is damaged, lost or stolen (subject to several limitations of coverage). Details here on the Wells Fargo Bank website.

We heard yesterday about Wells Fargo's new MySpace profile for Cassie Hill, the bank's Stagecoach Island ambassador avatar. Wells Fargo's Stagecoach Island is an online virtual world where users can have fun, socialize and at the same time learn a bit about finance, such as saving money, earning interest, etc. By having a MySpace profile for Cassie, the bank hopes to drive increased awareness and usage of Stagecoach Island. Wells Fargo seems to recognize that participation in social media is more than hosting your own blogs, but also includes reaching out to networks of all kinds to make connections and to engage with the public.

Wells Fargo said today that it will become "the first financial institution in the U.S. to provide Back Office Conversion (BOC) to its business customers through multiple depository channels when new electronic check processing rules take effect March 16."   » Continue Reading

The U.S. General Services Administration's (GSA) Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) has announced that "small business customers of WellsSecure, a business unit of Wells Fargo Bank, will now have access to FAS' premier online proposal submission program -- eOffer -- using WellsSecure digital certificates. This is the latest successful public-private partnership under GSA's E-Authentication Initiative, managed by the U.S. E-Authentication Identity Federation."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that, starting this week, its customers in Central California can deposit cash and checks directly into ATMs without an envelope. Wells Fargo, which already has 400 Envelope-Free WebATM machines in Northern California, announced plans to add 825 more of the new machines by the end of the year.   » Continue Reading

Nicole Garrison-Spenger reports for the Pioneer Press about the future of mobile banking - saying that "Wells Fargo, which holds the biggest market share of bank deposits in Minnesota, is testing some form of cell phone banking with its employees. The company wouldn't provide details, but one bank technology analyst said he expects Wells Fargo to show its cards sometime this year."

James Van Dyke of Javelin Strategy and Research blogs about how it's feeling like we're back in 2000 again - what with the seeming renewed interest in mobile banking and mobile payments. Back then, he says "the technology didn’t match the way that people managed their finances" - and the banks eventually shut down their mobile-specific offerings. Here are two bookends on Wells Fargo's experience - a February 7, 2001 press release announcing Wells Fargo as the "first major bank to launch nationwide wireless banking" with the launch of Wells Wireless - and a CNET News.com story from August 2002 (only 18 months later) announcing the shutdown of the Wells Fargo wireless banking service after only 2,500 customers actually used it. Obviously, the big question is what's different today? You can stay tuned to the news about mobile banking and mobile commerce in the category archives for those topics here on Payments News.

Wells Fargo has announced it has "added more challenging financial education content -- and entertaining activities -- to Stagecoach Island, its multi-player, online role-playing game for high school and college age students. When Wells Fargo piloted the Stagecoach Island game more than a year ago it became the first financial institution to use an online role-playing game to make financial education fun."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it has sold more than 1 million Wells Fargo Visa Gift Cards since the it began offering the product in October 2005 - with a substantial percentage of those sales actually coming from businesses.   » Continue Reading

Over the last few weeks, Wells Fargo has been telling its online banking customers that they might notice some changes on the Wells Fargo website.   » Continue Reading

Mark Schwanhausser writes for the San Jose Mercury News about mobile payments - saying that "eventually Americans will be able to choose among high-tech alternatives that will transform how they shop, pay for goods, borrow money, dole out allowances, transfer cash around the globe and manage their finances." Schwanhausser reports that San Francisco "Bay Area companies are playing influential roles mapping the way, from old-school titans such as Wells Fargo and Visa USA to New Economy ventures such as PayPal, Obopay and Yodlee." In a sidebar, Schwanhausser takes a look at some of the experiments underway.

Wells Fargo has announced that the number of deposits its business customers have made via the Internet -- eliminating the need for physical deposit of paper checks at the bank (called "remote deposit capture" in the banking industry -- nearly doubled in the past three months. This paper-less process was made legal by the "Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act" signed into law two years ago.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it is the first major U.S. bank to offer consumer remittance services to China and Vietnam along with expanding its consumer remittance services to the Philippines.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced the launch of the Perfect Receivables service designed to "streamline and increase the security of business-to-business electronic payments." The new Treasury Management solution is available for both ACH debits and credits, offering fraud risk reduction on both. Wire transfers will be integrated into the service in the near future.   » Continue Reading

A friend of Payments News files this field report: "I stopped at a Wells Fargo branch yesterday and got to use one of the new next-generation ATM machines. From a customer point of view, I thought they were switching from machines that required envelopes for deposits to machines that didn't. No big deal. Turns out these new machines are a lot more sophisticated than what I was anticipating."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that, in anticipation of an upcoming rule change by NACHA, it will integrate its automated clearinghouse (ACH) and account reconciliation plan (ARP) systems to better identify and post converted business checks accurately to clients' accounts.   » Continue Reading

Following up on its launch earlier this year of Guided by History, a blog now focused on general disaster preparedness in the US, Wells Fargo Bank is launching a new blog called "The Student LoanDown". Wells Fargo is the first major financial services company to launch a blog that's devoted to financing college and managing student debt - and which takes advantage of the bank's almost 40 years of experience in education financing.

Wells Fargo has announced several upgrades to its online security platform "designed to give customers and businesses even more protection in the fight against Internet fraud."   » Continue Reading

INSIDE Contactless has announced that its MicroPass platform has been selected as the initial chip platform for Wells Fargo's launch of its new Wells Fargo Visa Platinum and Wells Fargo Visa Signature contactless cards. On June 14th, Wells Fargo announced its plans to launch contactless credit cards. Peter Ho, Wells Fargo Card Services vice president and product manager, said at the time "we believe our customers will benefit from the speed and convenience offered by this exciting technology."   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced that it has begun issuing Wells Fargo Visa Platinum Credit Cards and Wells Fargo Visa Signature Credit Cards with Visa Contactless to customers - and says it is on track to distribute 400,000 cards by the end of 2006.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced plans to open a technology resource facility in Hyderabad, India later this year -- citing "a growing need for technology talent that can no longer be supplied solely in the U.S."   » Continue Reading

A new study from VocaLabs looks at the quality of telephone based customer service among five financial services companies -- Washington Mutual, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and PayPal. And the winner is...

Wells Fargo plans to begin distributing Wells Fargo Visa Platinum Credit Card and Wells Fargo Visa Signature Credit Card with Visa Contactless to customers in the second half of 2006.   » Continue Reading

CNNMoney.com posts an interview of Wells Fargo CEO Dick Kovacevich by G. Pascal Zachary of Business 2.0. "He says there's no such thing as an unprofitable customer - just one you haven't figured out how to make money on yet. And, he argues, if a customer is truly unprofitable, that's the company's problem, not the customer's."

The Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations blog has posted a podcast interview with Wells Fargo Senior Vice President Daniel Ayala in which he talks about his business at Wells Fargo serving Hispanics - not just for remittances but for their whole financial lives.

Five of the nation’s leading retail banks, Bank of America, BB&T Corporation, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo together with First Data have announced they have agreed to form Early Warning Services, LLC, to bring together the fraud prevention expertise of the owners with the intellectual property and assets of Primary Payment Systems (PPS) and IDLogix. PPS and IDLogix are subsidiaries of First Data specializing in fraud prevention technologies.   » Continue Reading

Glenbrook's Jim Salters reports on Employer Direct Pay, a new service recently introduced by Wells Fargo that enables small businesses to simply and conveniently initiate ACH payments to employees, contractors, and sales agents.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo Bank has launched an interactive, multimedia tour of the San Francisco earthquake and its aftermath on its Guided By History blog. Originally launched in mid-March, Guided By History is devoted exclusively to disaster and earthquake preparedness. Later this week, the blog will feature a series of 7 podcasts produced by Wells Fargo's historians. Next week, the week of the anniversary of the great quake, the blog will be providing live coverage of the events occurring throughout San Francisco looking back at the quake.   » Continue Reading

David Lazarus reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on the elimination of some benefits previously included on Visa debit cards. The banks he mentions planning to eliminate some of the existing debit card benefits include Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Wachovia.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo has announced the launch of "Guided by History", a new corporate blog devoted exclusively to earthquake and disaster preparedness. The blog's launch is timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.   » Continue Reading

Kathleen Pender writes for the San Francisco Chronicle about how most bank savings accounts, including her daughter's at Wells Fargo, are paying out very low rates of interest and she urges examining several better alternatives.   » Continue Reading

David Lazarus reports for the San Francisco Chronicle on changes made this week by Well Fargo Bank to its online banking service that included requiring some customers to consent to a revised online access agreement.

While wandering around the Wells Fargo Bank online site this afternoon, I stumbled across a new link to an RSS feed containing a daily news item called "This Date In Wells Fargo History." While perhaps not an exciting development in terms of bank adoption of RSS, this does feel a bit like a milestone event! A help page describing more about RSS is also provided. It will be interesting to watch as Wells Fargo and other US banks begin to syndicate more of their content.

American Express announced two major bank credit card issuing partnership deals this week: Bank of America and HSBC.

In both deals the removal of each bank from the list of defendants in the litigation American Express is pursuing (re: damages associated with MasterCard and Visa losing the US antitrust case) may have been an important element.   » Continue Reading

David Milstead reports for the Rocky Mountain News that Wells Fargo will abandon its "OneLook" account aggregation service early next year.   » Continue Reading

Steve Ellis, Executive Vice President of Wells Fargo's Wholesale Banking Group has been elected Chairman of NACHA's Board of Directors.   » Continue Reading

Wells Fargo Bank has announced a new consumer remittance service between the US and the Philippines. The new service is an account-to-ATM service that allows customers to send up to US$3,000 per day. Funds are available the next business day for pick-up at a network of over 4,000 ATMs in the Philippines. Receiving parties can withdraw up to US$400 per day using pre-sent ATM cards. Wells Fargo is charging $8 per deposit for the new service.   » Continue Reading