Wells Fargo
Well Fargo Bank
15 S Main Street
Brighton, CO 80601
303-655-3102
The merger of Wells Fargo and Wachovia doubled our size. We’re no longer defined as just a regional bank. We’re a national company. National in community banking. National in mortgage. National in investment services. National in commercial banking. National in consumer finance. National in insurance. We serve 70 million customers — one of every three households in America. That includes 20 million retail banking households and another two million business banking households. We service one of every six mortgages in America. The merger also brought us size, scale and expertise in a number of businesses such as investment banking and capital markets. It significantly expanded our global reach into Europe, South America and Asia. Some now even call us a “money center” bank — operating in major global capitals, with a large balance sheet, and extensive commercial lending and operating services.
With this growth in size and scope, what makes us different than other so-called “large banks”? How do we define ourselves? Here’s how I believe we should define ourselves:
We’re a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company.
Community-based distinguishes us from every other large bank. By “community-based” we mean we’re not just a bank that happens to be in the community, we’re a community bank. We’re “in and of” every community in which we do business, whether it’s Chapel Hill, North Carolina or Mason City, Iowa or Roseville, California. We all identify with our community and take geographic pride in where we live and where we’re from. That’s my town. That’s my state. We’re relationship-oriented, so we begin every conversation with what’s best for customers and their communities because every customer (and every one of our team members) lives somewhere, is part of a community — where they live and work and play, pay taxes, raise their family, educate their children, buy their groceries, practice their faith, care for their neighborhood, and support their local non-profits.
We’re local first, then national. We weren’t born as a national bank that then decided to be local. We were born as a local bank in one community that does business on Main Street and grew into a family of many local banks in many communities that only then became national. Every segment of the industry in which we do business — banking, mortgage, investments, insurance — started in a neighborhood and a town and grew to be national, not the other way around.
Since we’re local and national at the same time, however, we say that we want to:
“Out-local the nationals and out-national the locals.”
This means we look like a national bank but behave like a smaller bank — and vice versa. It means you as the customer can know your local tellers by name, but they can refer you to a global world of financial products and services. “Out-national the locals” means we must offer better products, more channels, superior technology and a broader product line than smaller local competitors. “Out-local the nationals” means we stay closer to our customers than any national competitors in our communities, understanding our local customer needs, and providing professional, personalized, timely service on a first-name basis.
We offer our retail banking customers the most extensive, convenient distribution system in our industry. We have more than 10,000 stores and 12,300 ATMs. We have the most banking stores in supermarkets. Our customers call our Phone Banks tens of millions of times a year. We’re the first, the oldest and the best internet online financial services provider in the U.S. with more services to a broader group of consumers and businesses than any competitor. We have products available online to meet all the financial needs of every one of our customers including consumers, investors, small businesses, middle market companies, and larger corporations. We have 16 million active internet banking customers. We want wellsfargo.com to be known as the best, integrated “trusted gateway” for all our customers’ financial services.
We have three major customer segments: individuals, small businesses and large businesses. We have five major business groups: Community Banking (individuals and small businesses); Wealth, Brokerage and Retirement Services; Home Mortgage; Card Services and Consumer Lending; and Wholesale Banking (larger businesses). Our corporate headquarters is in San Francisco, but we believe our real “head” quarters are where our customers are. Likewise, our talent and resources are broadly dispersed across North America. We have significant “hubquarters” of employment and expertise in many large metro areas including Charlotte, Boston, New York City, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, Des Moines, Saint Louis, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Phoenix, Denver, and Los Angeles.
