How is wells fargo make money Essay Example for Free

How is wells fargo make money Essay Wells Fargo Company is a diversified financial services company providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance for more than 23 million customers through 6,100 stores, the internet and other distribution channels across North America and elsewhere internationally. Headquartered in San Francisco, but were decentralized so every local Wells Fargo store is a headquarters for satisfying all customers financial needs and helping them succeeds financially. Wells Fargo has $483 billion in assets and 167,000 total team members across 80+ businesses. They are one of the United States top-40 largest private employers; ranked fifth in assets and fourth in market value of stock among their peers as of September 30, 2006 (Wells Fargo’s home page). Wells Fargo’s goal, however, is not to be the biggest, but to be the best. Wells Fargo’s website set forth its vision, which is â€Å"to satisfy all our customers financial needs and help them succeed financially. We want to be recognized as one of Americas great companies and the premier provider of financial services in every one of our markets, number one, second to none. † Loomis (17) states that Wells Fargo’s strategic initiatives include; increase the contribution to banking earnings from investments, trust, brokerage and insurance from 15 percent to 25 percent. Going for â€Å"gr-eight† Increase the number of products their consumer and business customers have with them to eight products per customer. Doing it right for the customer 100% bank-mortgage/home equity cross-sell all mortgage and home equity customers in banking states to bank with Wells Fargo and want all their banking customers who need a mortgage or a home equity loan to get it through Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo cards in every wallet; When, where and how Integrate all delivery channels stores, ATMs, Wells Fargo Phone Banksm, their online banking site, direct mail, interactive video—to match them with when, where and how their customers want to be served. â€Å"Information-based† marketing Use technology to take full advantage; offer the right product to the right customer at the right time at every point of customer contact. Be the customers’ payments processor. Premier customers Attract more and keep all existing premier customers and increase their numbers; and People as a Competitive Advantage- Continue to develop reward and recognize all team members. In 1852 Henry Wells and William Fargo founded Wells, Fargo Co. to serve the West. The new company offered banking (buying gold, and selling paper bank drafts as good as gold) and express (rapid delivery of the gold and anything else valuable). Wells Fargo opened for business in the gold rush port of San Francisco, and soon Wells Fargo’s agents opened offices in the other new cities and mining camps of the West. In the boom and bust economy of the 1850s, According to Hungerford, Wells Fargo earned a reputation of trust by dealing rapidly and responsibly with people’s money. In the 1860s, it earned everlasting fame and its corporate symbol with the grand adventure of the overland stagecoach line (99). Wells Fargo sent its business by the fastest means possible: stagecoach, steamship, railroad, pony rider or telegraph. In 1858, Wells Fargo helped start the Overland Mail Company the famed â€Å"Butterfield Line† to meet the demand for speedy communications across the west. In 1861, Wells Fargo also took over operations of the western leg of the famed, but short-lived, Pony Express (Scheele 250). In 1866, Wells Fargo combined all the major western stage lines. Stagecoaches bearing the name Wells, Fargo Co. rolled over 3,000 miles of territory, from California to Nebraska, and from Colorado into the mining regions of Montana and Idaho. After the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, Wells Fargo increasingly rode the rails. In 1888, after expanding along the new steel network across the Northeast into New York, Wells Fargo became the country’s first nationwide express company. It adopted the motto â€Å"Ocean-to-Ocean† to describe its service that connected over 2,500 communities in 25 states, and â€Å"Over-the-Seas† to highlight its lines linking America’s increasingly global economy. Wells Fargo rushed customers’ business from the urban centers of New York and New Jersey, through the rail hub of Chicago and farming regions of the Midwest, to ranching and mining centers in Texas and Arizona, and to lumber mill towns in the Pacific Northwest. Wells Fargo agents in towns large and small offered basic financial services like money orders, travelers’ checks, and transfer of funds by telegraph. Always, though, wherever there was mining, from Alaska to Arizona, Wells Fargo guarded the gold. By 1910 the Company’s network linked 6,000 locations, including new offices in the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. It was in these towns that the famed â€Å"Wells Fargo Wagon† delivered goods of all sorts, from a grey mackinaw to some grapefruit from Tampa, as the song from the Music Man goes (Hungerford 97). By 1918 Wells Fargo was part of 10,000 communities across the country. That year, however, the federal government took over the nation’s express network as part of its effort in the First World War. Wells Fargo was left with just one bank in San Francisco. Wells Fargo Co’s Bank, San Francisco (as it was called since 1852), formally separated in 1905 from Wells Fargo Co Express. The bank then survived the disaster of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire. Bank president I. W. Hellman telegraphed, â€Å"Building Destroyed, Vault Intact, and Credit Unaffected. † From that confident note, Wells Fargo began rebuilding its banking business across the West. In the 1910s and ’20s Wells Fargo served as a commercial bank in San Francisco, supporting the West’s growing business and agriculture, including fledgling auto, aerospace and film industries. The Wells Fargo Stagecoach became a regular actor in Hollywood westerns. Loomis (18) agreed that sound management helped the bank weather the Great Depression, serve the nation during World War II, and positioned the bank to meet new consumer banking needs in the prosperous post-war era. Through the 20th Century Wells Fargo rebuilt from just one office in San Francisco. From 1905 to 1923 it was a premier downtown San Francisco institution. Expanding in 1923 to two marbled banking halls, Wells Fargo was a â€Å"banker’s bank† that served the entire west. In 1960s prosperity, Wells Fargo became a northern California regional bank with branch offices everywhere people lived and played, from the coast to the mountains. In the 1980s Wells Fargo expanded into a state-wide bank and became the seventh largest bank in the nation and launched its online service (Wells Fargo home page). In the 1990s Wells Fargo returned to its historic territory throughout the Western, Midwestern and Eastern states. Today in the 21st Century, with extensive and diversified financial services, the Wells Fargo name once again extends â€Å"Ocean-to-Ocean,† â€Å"Over-the-Seas,† and, of course, On-Line. The famous image of the stagecoach and the reputation of the name saw Wells Fargo well through the mighty events and fantastic growth of the 20th Century. In prosperity, depression and war, even greater post-war prosperity, social changes and ever faster communications technologies, Wells Fargo’s attention to customers’ business has seen it through these great events and brought success. WORK CITED Hungerford, Edward. Wells Fargo: Advancing the American Frontier. New York: Random House, 1949. Loomis, Noel M. Wells Fargo. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1968. 17-18. Scheele, Carl H. A Short History of the Mail Service. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1970. 250. Wells Fargo. Home page. 2006. 23 Nov. 2006 https://www. wellsfargo. com/about/history/adventure/modern_times.