Wells Fargo Redesigns CEO Portal Services for Multiple Devices

Number of businesses that use online treasury services surges 120% in five years

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) today unveiled redesigned treasury management applications, including information reporting and fraud prevention, on its Commercial Electronic Office® (CEO®) portal. The enhancements speed up business customers’ access to their information and ability to get things done on any mobile device they choose, including smartphones, tablets, or laptops.

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Steve Ellis, executive vice president and group head of Wholesale Services at Wells Fargo (Photo: Business Wire)

The announcement coincided with the 15-year anniversary this month of the CEO portal, the banking industry’s first single sign-on point of access to a variety of financial services for businesses in 2000. Today, Wells Fargo commercial, corporate, and institutional customers in more than 190 countries use the CEO portal to connect to 90-plus online banking services. Active CEO users have increased 120 percent in the last five years.

“Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen dramatic changes in technology and the way our customers do business ― it’s not just through their desktops anymore,” said Steve Ellis, executive vice president and group head of Wholesale Services at Wells Fargo. “We’re continuing to invest in new technology to make banking easier and more secure for our customers who need to connect with many types of devices. We continually improve the CEO and release new features every quarter ― that’s 60 updates since its launch.”

In late 2014, Wells Fargo introduced the portal’s redesigned home page and basic banking applications, as part of a multiyear initiative to redesign the portal’s most frequently used services. In months ahead, the bank will deploy additional enhancements that will be accessible by Apple and Android smartphones, as well as tablets, laptops, and desktop computers.

“We are redesigning CEO services to ensure the portal looks and works the same way on any device a customer chooses to use,” said Secil Watson, executive vice president and head of Wholesale Internet Solutions at Wells Fargo. “The enhancements also increase the CEO’s convenience and security.”

In 2007, Wells Fargo became the first major U.S. financial services company to provide mobile banking services for corporate, commercial, and institutional customers when it launched the CEO Mobile® service. The bank’s active mobile business users have grown by more than 97 percent in just the past year.

“Our proprietary technology recognizes our customers, the devices they’re using, anticipates their financial needs, and delivers the right results,” added Ellis.

Latest CEO innovation: biometrics

Based on the bank’s research, Wells Fargo is the first U.S.-based financial institution to pilot a fusion of voice and face biometrics to authenticate CEO Mobile customers, a feature that is being rolled-out to CEO Mobile iPhone app users in 2016. By identifying customers’ faces, voices, and mobile devices, biometric authentication makes it extremely difficult to spoof the true user.

“Biometric technology is emerging and accelerating change in financial services,” said Danny Peltz, executive vice president and head of Treasury Management at Wells Fargo. “We continue to explore and test new safeguards for our business customers.”

Currently, Wells Fargo is also testing another biometric authentication technology that scans the veins of smartphone users’ eyes to verify their identity. This additional security will also be available to CEO Mobile iPhone app users in 2016.

The future: mobile solutions

Wells Fargo is also piloting another mobile technology ― an omni-channel commerce platform that helps businesses quickly and cost-effectively enhance their customers’ experiences, whether it’s making a payment, scheduling an appointment, tracking rewards and loyalty points, or receiving special offers. Businesses will be able to integrate these new application programming interface-based solutions in their digital applications ― including mobile apps, websites, kiosks, and point-of-sale systems ― next year.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a nationwide, diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.7 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,700 locations, 12,500 ATMs, and the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 36 countries to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 266,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 30 on Fortune’s 2015 rankings of America’s largest corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy all our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo perspectives are also available at Wells Fargo Blogs and Wells Fargo Stories.

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Wells Fargo & CompanyAndrea Mahoney, 415-222-4722 (Media)[e-mail]@AndreaMahoneyWF