Wells Fargo online banking, considered as the pioneer in online banking took its first step by introducing Personal Computer banking services in 1989. Another stride in 1995 broke new grounds when the bank incorporated the web in addressing depositors’ banking and trading needs.
Simply not content with offering the usual electronic services for their large clientele base, separate reporting tools are made available to clients for monitoring their spending activities and achieving their saving goals. Wells Fargo goes as far as sending e-mails and wireless warnings regarding high-risk transactions such as substantial amount of withdrawals in an account. Accordingly, continuous screening and scrutiny of day to day electronic banking activity is maintained in order to carry out this function. As an added precautionary measure, access, information requests and queries have to pass certain security checks in the form of questions before they are allowed or entertained.
These extra efforts on Wells Fargo’s part is somewhat expected since they give a 100 guarantee to cover any funds that might have been fraudulently taken from a client’s account; provided of course, that the client himself was not remiss in ensuring the safety of his account. Hence, in a survey undertaken by an internet research firm, it is not so surprising at all that Wells Fargo online banking ranked first in terms of services found most useful by customers. Although as far as fees and yields are concerned, this institution cannot match all the free-of-charge features or offers of high-rates of return by internet-only banks. In the long run, it was surmised that the decisive factor in choosing a bank particularly for online services is the soundness of its security.
However, Wells Fargo also has its own share of bad reviews which dwell mostly on criticisms about difficulty in tracking of transactions, too much security measures that tend to cause delays, taking too long to process documents, delay in informing customers and an evaluation that the bank’s system of crediting is designed to cause an average depositor to fail. In all aspects mentioned the complaining customer still maintained fairness by indicating the courses of action taken by Wells Fargo representatives.
Most recently, a glitch in the bank’s computer system prevented customers from having access to their online financial credits. In spite of immediate response in addressing the crisis, the disorder brought a jarring effect to about 23 million clients of its more than 6000 branches. Wells Fargo appears to have a record of computer malfunctions since a similar occurrence five years ago involved a freeze-out of clients from their deposit accounts for a brief period of time. This leads us to presume, that Wells Fargo online banking needs more than strict security measures to provide a sound banking commitment.
