Dive Brief:
- Wells Fargo plans to boost customer engagement and grow its business after fulfilling consent order requirements, executives said on a Q4 2024 earnings call Wednesday.
- The bank accelerated efforts to refurbish branches and completed 730 upgrades in 2024, according to CEO Charlie Scharf.
- Mobile banking is also expected to be a source of growth. Customer engagement with the bank’s mobile app grew in 2024 with 1.5 million active customers, up 5% from the year prior.
Dive Insight:
Wells Fargo is still feeling the effects from its fake-account scandal. On Wednesday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined three former executives a total of $18.5 million for that scandal in which employees created 2 million unauthorized bank accounts and credit cards from 2011 to 2015.
The bank still faces an asset cap placed on it by the Federal Reserve, but in February, the OCC lifted a 2016 consent order it had against the bank.
Now, with consent order requirements satisfied and an expected removal of the asset cap in 2025, Wells Fargo is looking to generate growth and increase customer engagement.
“After several years of little to no growth, as we focused on satisfying the requirements of our consent orders, we are starting to generate growth and increase customer engagement in our consumer, small and business banking segment,” Scharf said.
On the consumer side, the bank is enhancing its mobile app by making it easier to open accounts. However, Wells Fargo may be behind the curve. As Peter Wannemacher, principal analyst at Forrester, told CX Dive last fall, the ability to open accounts via mobile apps is table stakes, as two-thirds of customers expect to be able to do all their banking on their mobile apps.
The bank is also pushing customers toward Zelle with success.
“Our customers are also increasingly using Zelle, and we had over 1 billion Zelle transactions in 2024, up 22% from a year ago,” Scharf said.
Digital banking just one part of the bank’s plan to drive growth.
“To drive customer growth in the consumer businesses, we plan to continue scaling our marketing efforts, modernizing our branch footprint and increasing the number of premier bankers and financial advisers,” CFO Mike Santomassimo said. “We are also focused on onboarding more independent advisers as we continue building out our independent brokerage channel.”
The bank is still eyeing ways to drive efficiency, particularly through automation, in an effort to improve experiences and boost the bottom line in 2025. Santomassimo says the strategy is “just like peeling an onion.”
“And as you sort of look at the next layer down, you find more efficiency, you bring better technology, you bring better automation, which, by the way, saves us money, but also in a lot of cases, improves the client experience for our customers,” Santomassimo said.
