Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) is developing a virtual assistant to help it convert more retail banking customers into digital users, according to early morning media reports.
The assistant, named Fargo, will be able to execute tasks including paying bills, sending money and offering transaction details and budgeting advice, according to Michelle Moore, the bank’s consumer digital head. It’s expected to be out next year after the bank releases a revamped mobile app and website in early 2022, she said.
The move by Wells Fargo, a consumer banking giant with more branches than any lender except JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), is part of a broader technology overhaul under CEO Charles Scharf.
Updating the bank’s aging systems has been a priority for Scharf since becoming CEO two years ago, a key part of the turnaround needed after the bank’s 2016 fake accounts scandal. Last month, Wells Fargo announced a decade-long plan to move computing to Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) cloud servers.
"Everyone lives on their phone, and there’s an expectation on how things should work,” Moore said in a Zoom interview. “Our clients were telling us that our app was not easy to use, it’s not intuitive, there were too many dead ends and clients were getting stuck."
While it had the most extensive brick-and-mortar presence of any U.S. bank for years, only being eclipsed in branch count last quarter by JPMorgan, Wells Fargo trails rivals in digital adoption.
Regulators have criticized the firm’s technology systems, and a 2019 mishap at a Minnesota data center knocked out customers’ mobile and web access for hours.
WFC shares cleared breakeven 11 cents to $50.77.
