Wells Fargo Re-Envisions Online Banking for Corporations as It Moves to Become the Bank of the Future Today

Business Wire, May 19, 2004

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2004

Leading Internet Bank Adds New Features Designed to Help Businesses

Work More Easily and Efficiently Online

The future of banking for medium- and large-sized corporations is being shaped on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, but the move is not being led by a software company or tech startup. Instead, a group of internet visionaries at Wells Fargo & Company's (NYSE: WFC) internet division are leading the charge towards a new era of online banking, which centers on customized service, speed and convenience. The next winners will be Wells Fargo's corporate customers, who will soon see an industry-leading suite of internet banking services take another giant step forward.

Re-Envisioning Online Banking for Corporations

The next generation of online banking from Wells Fargo primarily focuses not on what but on how we deliver information to customers. It's giving customers the information when, where and how they need it to do their job effectively and more efficiently.

"We've re-engineered our internet portal starting with a number of challenges raised by our customers, who answered the call to brainstorm ways that the Internet could meet their financial services needs in the future," stated Steve Ellis, Wells Fargo executive vice president, Wholesale Services. "With that input in mind, the Wells Fargo team got together and brought the future to life."

The important advances, many of which are outlined below, have dramatically improved Wells Fargo's Commercial Electronic Office(R) (CEO(R)) offering, which was already considered by many observers and analysts to be the industry leader for corporate banking customers.

As an early adapter to Wells Fargo's award-winning Commercial Electronic Office (CEO) portal, Oracle has never looked back. Commented Philip Rice, treasurer of Oracle Corporation: "The CEO portal has significantly improved our ability to access detailed account balance information, track transactions, and make quick investment decisions 24/7. We use the CEO for foreign exchange activity, ACH and wire transfers and for daily treasury information reporting. The CEO allows for great security controls and more flexibility in how we download our reports. We can view all our positions in any form we want, as well as customize the reports to see only the data we want to see, all in real-time, enabling us to make faster, better decisions. We would certainly recommend the CEO to other corporations."

    The Future - Available Now

   -- CEO Event Messaging: Event Messaging Service enables Wells Fargo
      to push information out to customers with notifications that:

       - An incoming wire has just been received or rejected
       - A wire is awaiting approval
       - A wire has been successfully or unsuccessfully processed by
         the bank
       - Positive Pay exceptions are ready for review

      The introduction of CEO Event Messaging Service reinforces Wells
      Fargo's innovative customer-centric approach, which provides
      customers critical information however and whenever they need
      it. CEO Event Messaging Service is the most robust product of
      its kind now in use.

   -- CEO Portlets: "Portlets" provide a customizable snapshot of key
      account balances and critical report data for CEO customers that
      appears immediately upon log-in. After viewing the overview
      information in their portlet, customers can obtain more detail
      by clicking on a link that takes them to the actual application
      within CEO, such as Account Balance or Treasury Information
      Reporting.

      New portlets will be continually added based on the individual
      customer's needs (near-term possibilities include initiating
      wires, stop payments and search requests), and over time new
      features will be added to the portlets such as key Wells Fargo
      contacts and realtime alerts.

   -- Customer-Centric Servicing: Customer service is critical to the
      success of any online offering. As Danny Peltz, Wells Fargo
      executive vice president, Wholesale Internet Solutions, points
      out, "It's not just what innovative products we offer, it's more
      about how we deliver them. We spend a great deal of time
      ensuring that our online offerings are easy to learn and
      master."

      Three cutting edge examples include:

       - TeaLeaf Technology (www.tealeaf.com): A one-of-a-kind
         solution that allows bank operators to identify problems
         immediately, reproduce them, rapidly isolate causal factors
         and prevent them from reoccurring. It offers real-time
         playback capability - a servicing agent can follow every
         click and action a customer performed during a session. Bank
         operators can proactively diagnose customer behavior and
         prevent potential customer errors as well as identify
         customer training needs. Errors that may have taken several
         days to diagnose can now be identified and resolved in a
         matter of hours.

       - iCEO: An internal tool modeled after the Commercial
         Electronic Office customer portal. iCEO connects all of our
         disparate sales, service and delivery tools through a single
         sign-on, centered on the customer's needs. It requires
         minimal training and can be personalized to the role and
         workflow of the user. It will also enable the internal users
         to react at the speed of customer demand, stay oriented
         around the customer's life cycle and share data and tools
         with the customer CEO portal.

       - ServiceView: Delivered through iCEO, a servicing platform
         that will help deepen the bank's customer relationships by
         providing customer service agents a complete view of the
         customer's servicing experience across all wholesale lines of
         business. Unlike most siloed servicing centers that operate
         independently and have minimal communication, ServiceView
         will provide one, consistent view of the customer, regardless
         of which Wells Fargo business group they are dealing with.
         Understanding the customer's experience across wholesale will
         transform the way we provide service to our customers,
         allowing us to proactively analyze potential issues and
         recommend solutions to streamline their workflow and create
         greater efficiencies.

   -- Self-Directed Tools for Customers: The CEO platform was designed
      to allow administrators to perform many tasks that had
      previously required a phone call to the bank, saving customers
      time, giving them more control, and making their jobs easier.

      Some of the self administration tasks administrators can carry
      out include:

       - Reports that show what products and accounts the users in the
         company have access to
       - Add new users and administrators
       - Reset passwords
       - Disable users
       - Add and update access to a variety of Treasury Management
         services
       - Online tutorials, which offer class-leading depth and
         functionality
       - And, coming in June, activate new financial services online