Wells Fargo M-Banking Customer Growth Up 19 Percent

While Wells Fargo posted a slight profit dip in its first-quarter earnings that were reported yesterday (April 14), on the mobile side of its banking business, the number of customers is growing at a strong rate.

Wells Fargo posted a profit of $5.8 billion, which was down from last year’s $5.89 billion by 1.5 percent. Still earnings were better than analysts’ expectations for the quarter. Revenue for the quarter rose 3.2 percent to $21.28 billion, which was just above par of analysts’ expectations.

Outside of the earnings figures, in yesterday’s earnings call with analysts, CFO John Shrewsberry gave some insights into the company’s mobile growth. He indicated that 75 percent of Wells Fargo customers who still use deposit services have visited a physical bank in the last six months. He also said the company’s mobile banking is growing the fastest.

“We had 14.9 million active mobile customers, up 19 percent from a year ago. Our customers are increasingly using this channel with mobile banking sessions up 38 percent in 2014, while customer usage of our stores has remained stable,” he said. “We also continue to successfully grow retail bank households. February was our highest monthly net gain of retail bank households in four years. These new households provide us with growth opportunities as we focus on meeting their financial needs through our diversified product line.”

Wells Fargo saw debit card purchase volume increase 8 percent and credit card volume increase 16 percent from a year prior. Overall, on the earnings side, net income was down $179 million, or 5 percent, from Q1 of 2014. Revenue increased $191 million, or 2 percent, from a year ago.

CEO John Stumpf also gave some insight about how its digital initiatives are growing across the company. Even as digital continues to gain more of its customer share, the physical banks still have a role in attracting its core customer base, he said.

“If you think about the 12,000 consumer interactions we have a minute in this company, 80 percent or so are what I would call digitally supported — either let’s say online or mobile, and mobile being our fastest growing. But our stores, our 6,200 stores are still busy. Seventy-five percent of our customers come into a store once every six months, even millennials or our most advanced on the digital side visit our stores, visit ATMs,” Stumpf said.