Wells Fargo – Company Overview, History, Products

Wells Fargo & Company is one of the most popular American multinational technology companies that specializes in financial services. It currently employs more than 270,000 employees and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. Wells Fargo is present in more than 35 countries including India and over 90 million customers worldwide. The CEO of the company is Charles Scharf. Wells Fargo is currently listed on the New York stock exchange and has a market capitalization of more than 180 billion dollars and it generated revenue of more than 79 billion dollars in the financial year 2021.

The various products and services of Wells Fargo include asset management, investment banking, equity trading, mortgage loans, mutual funds, risk & wealth management, insurance, global market, and credit cards & debit cards. The various subsidiaries of Wells Fargo include Wells Fargo Advisors, Wells Fargo Rail Wells Fargo Securities, Wells Fargo N.A., Wachovia, CoreStates Financial, etc.

The main subsidiary of Wells Fargo includes Wells Fargo Bank N.A. which is established in Delaware. The company is currently the 4th largest bank in the United States as compared to the total market capital assets after JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank. It has more than 9000 branches worldwide with 13,000 ATMs all over the world. Wells Fargo ranks in the top 50 companies list of Fortune 500 companies in the United States.

Wells Fargo – History & Overview:

Wells Fargo was initially founded by Henry Wells, John Butterfield, and William G. Fargo, the founder of American Express in 1852. It was first established in California to provide banking services to users that include transporting gold as an express mail delivery across the states in the USA during the California Gold Rush. Slowly, Wells Fargo established a dominant market for financial services and delivery of mail & supplies.

Later on, it merged with multiple mail delivery services like Holladay and Overland Mail. In 1905, Wells Fargo separated its banking & financial services and its mail delivery services into two separate agencies. Wells Fargo banking services merged with the Nevada National Bank. During the time of the First World War, Wells Fargo merged with the US Railway Express Agency to expand its business all over the US. In 1923, Wells Fargo Nevada merged with the Union Trust Company to form Wells Fargo Bank & Union Trust Company. Later in 1962, it changed its name to Wells Fargo Bank.

By 1968, Wells Fargo launched its new banking charter subsidiary called Wells Fargo Bank N.A. along with Henry Trione. In the late 1990s, Wells Fargo acquired multiple banks and financial institutions like Crocker National Bank in 1986, Business Trust of Bank of America in 1987, Barclays Bank Of California in 1988, Great American Bank in 1991, and First Interstate Bank in 1996 for 11 billion dollars.

By 1995, Wells Fargo was the first bank to offer online services to its customers through the internet. The biggest acquisition made by Wells Fargo was in 2008 to acquire Wachovia for more than 15 billion dollars through an in-stock purchase. Later in 2008, due to the global economic crisis, Wells Fargo received more than 25 billion dollars of emergency funds from the US treasury in order to revive the economy.

Wells Fargo has acquired multiple companies like Merlin securities, The Rock Creep Group, and GE Capital Rail Services. Wells Fargo also partnered with Samsung and Google to develop smartphone transaction services applications for mobile wallets like Android Pay and Samsung Pay in 2017. In February 2018, Wells Fargo was accused by the US federal reserve of misusing its 2 trillion dollar customer assets for fake account fraud which led to the intervention of the Federal Reserve.

Products and Services:

The various products and services of Wells Fargo are as follows:

Asset Management – It is a service that allows the governance and management of the asset over its whole life cycle as an investment.

Investment Banking – this service relates to the financial services of a company based on the transactions related to corporate finance and equities.

Mortgage Loans – These loans are given by Wells Fargo for the purchase of real estate to raise the funds for the customer.

Equity Trading – Equity trading is a service that allows you to maximize the profit by the purchase and sale of stocks or securities by the investor in large publicly traded companies.

Insurance – Wells Fargo also provides various types of risk management insurance to its customers like life insurance, health insurance, accident insurance, and vehicle insurance.

Wrapping Up:

Hence, Wells Fargo is one of the largest financial services companies that is famous for its services like asset management, investment banking, equity trading, insurance, and mortgage loans. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest bank in the United States as per the value of the asset after JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank.