Wells Fargo Completes Final Transition of Wachovia Banking Locations

Wells Fargo chairman, president, and CEO John Stumpf traveled across the country this week to celebrate North Carolina’s role as the final retail banking market to convert from Wachovia to Wells Fargo. As part of the largest bank merger in U.S. history, banking locations in North Carolina converted to Wells Fargo in October. More than 1.2 million customers in North Carolina can now have their financial needs met at 320 Wells Fargo banking stores and 651 ATMs.

Nationwide, more than 3,000 Wachovia banking locations, 5,200 ATMs, and 24,000 signs have changed to Wells Fargo, and 20 million customer households now have the convenience of banking at more than 6,200 stores and 12,000 ATMs across the United States.

The Wells Fargo and Wachovia merger was announced on Oct. 3, 2008, and closed on Dec. 31, 2008. The first retail bank conversions took place in Colorado in November 2009.

This week, Stumpf marked the integration milestone with team members, customers and community members in Winston-Salem, Raleigh and Charlotte. The events culminated with a conversion celebration earlier today with nearly 3,000 Wells Fargo team members in attendance at the Charlotte Convention Center. Stumpf’s presentation was broadcast live on TeamTV, Wells Fargo’s internal television network, which serves 270,000 team members across the country.

"This is an historic occasion for our company,” noted Stumpf. "When we started planning this complex process three years ago, our approach was to be very deliberate and thoughtful. We wanted to get it right and provide continuous service to our customers. And our team members have delivered on that promise.”

Since the Dec. 31, 2008 merger, Wells Fargo has:

• Converted more than 38 million accounts, including mortgage, deposit, trust, brokerage and credit card, among others.
• Continued to rank as America’s No. 1 small business lender (nine consecutive years). Wells Fargo is committed to helping small businesses succeed by actively lending.
  • In 2010, Wells Fargo provided $15 billion in new loans to small businesses.
  • For the first three quarters of 2011, Wells Fargo made more than $10 billion in new loan commitments to U.S. small businesses, an eight percent increase in dollars lent from the prior year.
  • Wells Fargo is the first lender ever to lend $1 billion in SBA 7(a) loans to small businesses in one year.
• Increased active online customers from 10.8 million to 19.7 million.
• Participated in more than 600 home preservation workshops, opened 27 home preservation centers, and conducted nearly 717,000 active trial or completed mortgage modifications.

Already the transition to Wells Fargo has brought new benefits to customers. Wells Fargo has added more than 4,700 new jobs to its East Coast stores to better serve customers and plans to add 500 more in 2012. Customers now have expanded choices in checking, savings and other products ranging from renters insurance and auto insurance to identity theft prevention and the ExpressSend^® remittance service.

Throughout 2009 and 2010, Wachovia ATMs were replaced with Wells Fargo’s environmentally friendly Envelope-Free ATMs. These ATMs accept stacks of cash or checks without envelopes and give customers more time to do their banking – cash is credited instantly, and check deposits made before 9 p.m. are credited the same business day. These ATMs provide increased convenience to small businesses that can receive credit for their deposits even after the banking store is closed.

In addition, all banking stores nationwide have been remodeled to the Wells Fargo open layout floor plan, which improves the customer experience and uses environmentally friendly materials and systems.

"Wachovia has a deep and rich history—one that Wells Fargo honors and respects,” added Stumpf. "Our goal was to combine the best from both companies. We’ve done that, and the end result is that we’re stronger than either company was before. But we realize we can only be as strong as the communities we serve, so we hold ourselves responsible for being leaders to promote long-term economic prosperity and quality of life for everyone in our communities.”

Local communities and nonprofit groups across the country benefitted from the transition to Wells Fargo. The company announced charitable contributions of more than $2.8 million to nonprofit organizations within the converting regions based on voting by Wachovia customers and team members. In 2010, Wells Fargo contributed $219 million to 19,000 non-profits and team members volunteered more than 1.3 million hours to support the causes they care about.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.3 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 9,000 stores, 12,000 ATMs, the Internet (wellsfargo.com and wachovia.com), and other distribution channels across North America and internationally. With more than 270,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in America. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 23 on Fortune’s 2011 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially.

Wells Fargo Investments, LLC (member SIPC), is a non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.

Wells Fargo Advisors is the trade name used by three separate registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company providing certain retail securities brokerage services: Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC, Wells Fargo Investments, LLC, and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC (members SIPC).

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A.

Member FDIC