The push into mobile banking

Known as the first major U.S. financial services company to offer mobile services for businesses as well as the first to offer consumer and small business customers both browser- and text-based account access via mobile devices – there will likely only be more firsts down the road as mobile continues to be a key business channel for Wells Fargo.

Behind the many mobile initiatives at Wells Fargo lies a huge focus on the customer, with great attention given to what customers want to be able to do with their mobile devices and how they want to interact with the company through their mobile devices. 
Minich, who leads the mobile initiatives on the wholesale side of Wells Fargo, acknowledges that there’s already been a definite shift in customer awareness around mobile.

While at one time it was admittedly Wells Fargo’s undertaking to convince customers of the potential impact of mobile devices on the market, today customers are already on the same page in the conversation. “The biggest shift that’s been happening is that it’s gone from being this kind of theoretical, esoteric conversation to a much more practical one,” Minich explains. “Today people can understand the value as opposed to just talking about the cool new technology.”

Not only can Wells Fargo now get right into articulating the value of the channel, but customers have also begun to put forth their own ideas about what they’d like to be able to do with their mobile devices. “They’re starting to make the links that not only are there things that they’re going to want to do on their mobile device, but because they’re doing them on a mobile device, it might change what they want to do or how they do it,” Minich says.

While customers have certainly begun to recognize the value of mobile banking, many still hold fast to perceived security challenges. In fact, skewed customer perceptions around the mobile security have been one of the biggest hurdles for Wells Fargo, and the bank is still working to break down misconceptions about security related to mobile devices.

To an extent, Minich is pleased to know that customers are concerned about data security. “I don’t mind that customers ask questions about security and think about what it means to do things on these mobile devices because I’d rather have them be cautious and not do something they shouldn’t. But the reality is these devices are on a managed network – the carrier’s network – you’re actually in a managed environment the whole time and the data is encrypted through the entire session.”

The important fact that customers need to understand is that mobile devices are merely an extension of the Internet – and as such, Wells Fargo is leveraging the same authentication credentials for mobile devices that are used in its online site. “The nice thing about mobile and developing a mobile browser site is that you can use the same security and encryption technologies that you use on the Internet so we’re using the same 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption.”

While very little differs between mobile browser sites and the Internet, especially from a network connectivity perspective, it’s important to ensure data is always encrypted. One issue that sometimes arises is when downloading mobile browsers to mobile phones, certain browsers don’t have full end-to-end encryption and so Wells Fargo restricts customers from logging on to such browsers. But for the most part, there’s more confidence in the security of a carrier’s network.

Invariably, Wi-Fi introduces a higher degree of risk because it brings of number of unknowns into the equation. “If you’re going onto a Wi-Fi network somewhere at a hotel or at a Starbucks or airport or wherever you are from your PC or a mobile device with Wi-Fi connectivity, you can’t have as much confidence in the actual network because you don’t know who’s hosting the network,” Minich elaborates. But Wi-Fi or no Wi-Fi, the major security risk that applies to all mobile devices is the increased threat of theft or loss, which is why it’s recommended to not store any valuable or sensitive information on the phone such as a password. 

Mobile work at Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo has already well established itself as a technology leader in the financial services industry, especially when it comes to mobility, and is continuously engaged in ongoing work that will help to retain that reputation.

One main initiative Wells Fargo is working on is developing a mobile browser site for commercial banking customers to log into to get information and do transactions. With a customer base that’s relatively mobile, Wells Fargo is focusing on identifying key items that need to be acted upon in a timely manner. “It’s really about delivering critical information to them through their mobile devices as well as serving up specific transactions that they might need to do, such as approving a wire, making decisions on positive-pay items or resetting user passwords,” Minich explains.

• With last year’s launch of the CEO MobileSM service, Wells Fargo became the first major U.S. financial services company to offer mobile services for business customers. Wells Fargo is currently working to expand the service from its early days when it only offered simple reporting around basic intraday balance information. Today the service has evolved to provide account detail and wire detail information, the ability to approve wires, initiate templated wires and review and decision image positive pay items.

Other plans are underway to continue to release additional functionality within the product along similar lines of what’s been released in other mobile applications related to time-sensitive activities.

So far Wells Fargo has received nothing but positive feedback from customers about the CEO Mobile service – and has only seen growth in channel, according to Minich. “We’re pleased with the growth in terms of customers accessing the channel, and it’s intuitive, so we’ve received very few calls into our customer service group. It means that people are figuring it out. They truly understand the value. They appreciate that Wells Fargo is trying to anticipate their needs and anticipate the market.”

Last fall, Wells Fargo also introduced Wells Fargo MobileSM, a browser-based mobile banking solution that enables customers to check balances of small business, personal deposit and credit accounts, view transaction history, and transfer money between eligible Wells Fargo accounts on any Web-enabled mobile device. When short message service (SMS) – or texting capability – was added to the solution, Wells Fargo then became the first major financial services company to offer consumer and small business customers both browser- and text-based account access through mobile devices.

SMS is also an important channel for mobile banking across the enterprise – as Wells Fargo has recognized the value of SMS in reaching commercial banking customers who might not yet have e-mail on mobile devices but have time-sensitive tasks that need to be completed. Wells Fargo extended its notification engine to send alerts of certain items such as wire approvals to commercial customers via SMS as well as e-mail or fax.

Minich attributes Wells Fargo’s leadership in the mobile arena to a number of factors, largely visionary leadership. ““Our senior management sees us as a technology company just as much as a financial services company -- as opposed to a bank that uses technology. Financial information is our asset and the security around that is another asset.”

The big technology focus and the heavy customer focus are also key ingredients in the formula, including the fact that Wells Fargo is not afraid to be the first to test the waters when it comes to new technology ventures. “We’re very fortunate in that our management team is not afraid to invest in trials and pilots, and they recognize the need to get something out there first and understand it,” Minich acknowledges. “So we’re working to understand what that mobile person wants to do.”

Venturing further into mobile
Looking to the future, Wells Fargo is looking at current learning around workflow and usage, delivering more alerts and notifications via SMS and exploring other actions customers might want to do through their mobile devices.

While Wells Fargo continues to build a reputable presence in the mobile banking space, Minich believes that mobile banking is just a stepping-stone, and convergence is really what’s key.

Though the use of mobile devices has already rapidly evolved in recent years, Minich advises that this is only the beginning; eventually, the devices will be used to do more and more different things. Nothing attests to the degree of change more than the emergence of the iPhone, which also marks the first major step down the path to convergence.

“The iPhone is merging your music and all these things, so the devices are now becoming this little mini-computer, so what is that going to mean?” Minich asks.  “You’re going to want to use your device to do other things. Is it going to become your wallet? Is it going to become your ID? Is it going to become how you’re going to get on your airplane?”

She envisions the day when using a camera or GPS, making payments, and purchasing movie tickets will all be rolled into one. In fact, she doesn’t think such a killer application is too far down the road. “Technology is just this enabler that’s going to allow us to do things differently. When you can make a payment with your phone and get information and use your cards and get loyalty points and all that stuff – that is the killer app when it’s all integrated.”

For now, mobile banking is where it’s at and Wells Fargo will be focused on satisfying customers’ wants in terms of how they want to interact with the company and the types of actions they wish to conduct over their mobile device – whether it’s investing, making a payment, or simply transferring funds.

“Mobile banking is still a very point-in-time application, but ultimately, it’s going to be about integrating,” Minich says. “People talk about what you can do with mobile banking – the device is just a device. It’s about understanding what people are going to want to do with them and then what that’s going to mean for the company and their relationship with Wells Fargo.”

Wells Fargo Mobile Milestones

• Wells Fargo became the first major U.S. financial services company to offer a mobile service for businesses with its CEO MobileSM service in May 2007.
• Wells Fargo and Visa USA announced an extensive mobile pilot to test consumer mobile payments and services in June 2007.
• The company introduced Wells Fargo MobileSM, a browser-based mobile banking solution available to all of its customers nationwide in July 2007.
• Wells Fargo delivered a browser-based solution giving small business owners nationwide mobile access to their business and personal financial information in September 2007.

First major financial services company to offer consumer and small business customers both browser- and text-based account access via mobile devices in October 2007.

About Megan Minich
Megan Minich is SVP in the Wholesale Internet and Treasury Solutions Group at Wells Fargo Bank. She currently leads the Mobile Technology group for the Wholesale Bank.  She and her team are responsible for defining how the mobile channel is integrated into our other customer delivery channels and partnering closely with teams across the bank to ensure we have a consistent, best-in-class approach to mobile and wireless technologies. 

Megan has been at Wells Fargo for over seven years. Most recently, Megan managed the Lockbox product team where she was responsible for the strategic direction of the Wholesale and Retail Lockbox products, including defining future strategy of the product, identifying new initiatives to better serve target customer segments, and high-level oversight of all Lockbox initiatives. Megan's previous roles included working in the online strategy and planning group for Wholesale Internet Solutions, managing the design and implementation of an Internet-based workflow and document management solution, and marketing manager for a B2B marketplace financial product.

About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $595 billion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance through almost 6,000 stores and the internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is the only bank in the U.S., and one of only two banks worldwide, to have the highest possible credit rating from both Moody's Investors Service, “Aaa,” and Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, “AAA.”