Well, it's been almost a year since the Wells Fargo and Wachovia merger was announced. In the months that have followed, teams from both banks have been working diligently behind the scenes to determine what systems and products would be used in the combined company — no small feat, to say the least!
The teams have also taken great strides to make sure there's been little to no impact on you, our customers, during this time. And now we're gearing up for the first market conversion in Colorado in November.
As you might imagine, the integration is being worked on by many teams across the company. But the person responsible for overseeing it all is Pat Callahan. Pat's been with Wells Fargo for more than 30 years and has served in various roles throughout the company, including working on the integration of previous mergers.
This time, she's working with Steve Boehm, who was a guest blogger here on an earlier post.
In any case, we know many of you've had specific questions and comments about the integration, like this one from Sharon Collins posted on July 28:
I live in a state that has Wells Fargo but no Wachovia and I have been a Wachovia customer for over a year now. I would like to know if or when I can make cash deposits into the local Wells Fargo bank and how long would it take to reach my wachovia account. I have direct deposit but I am still looking for the comfortablilty to be able to go into a branch and make my transactions.
Well, Sharon (and everyone), we're doing our best to address your questions! So I recently sat down with Pat to get her thoughts about the integration and to share some of your most frequent comments from the blog:
Ann Marie Quinn: Pat, thanks for taking the time to meet with us. We know you're very busy preparing for the first market conversion in Colorado and working on other conversion tasks.
Pat Callahan: My pleasure! I've been a big fan of the blog and appreciate the readers who are asking questions or leaving comments about their experiences during this time. I've read many comments and appreciate customers taking the time to let us know what they think and what questions they have for us.
AMQ: So, right off the bat, what has been done from a merger perspective in the last year that our customers would notice or want to know about?
PC: Well from what I've seen, many, if not all, announcements related to what customers can do between banks have been posted on the blog. This includes the ability for mortgage customers to make their payments at either a Wells Fargo or Wachovia location and no ATM fees for customers to use either bank's ATMs. We've also started offering some Wells Fargo products and services in Wachovia stores — such as Home Mortgages.
The naming and branding of Wells Fargo Advisors is also complete. However, there's still some significant work to do to combine the Wachovia Securities and Wells Fargo Advisors products and platforms....
AMQ: Ok, we're getting comments from readers who want to know what's taking so long to combine the two banks. So, I'll use that as my next question.
PC: I have read some of those comments...and I know it seems like a long time! But from the inside if feels fast! This merger is extremely complex. When we're done putting Wells Fargo and Wachovia together, we'll serve one in three Americans, and we'll have more stores and more access points for our customers than any other company. On the back-end, we'll be on one platform across the entire country . Our customers use our systems in a very integrated way — stores, ATM, Phone Banking Centers and On-Line Banking are all very tightly linked, and changes are complicated and need to be very well-designed and tested.
When the merger decision was announced, John Stumpf wrote in his blog post and said in media interviews that "Blending cultures, combining businesses, products and systems, and changing names will take time — two to three years — because we want to do it right for you.” I think his original timeline is on track. We will be substantially complete three years from the time we closed the merger, December 2011.
You know, if I could wave a magic wand and convert everything at once with no impact to our customers, I would. I know our team members would like that, too. Integrations are extremely labor intensive, and many thousands of team members are working very hard to get this done! Our number one priority is making sure our customers feel taken care of and aren't confused.
I know that customers want to be able to enjoy the full suite of products and the network of branches and ATMs that will ultimately be available to them! Unfortunately, we're still another two years away from fully completing this integration. The conversion isn't as easy as changing a sign or putting new logos on buildings, and frankly, those tasks aren't so easy either when you consider the huge quantity of signs in our combined network! The good news is customers can continue banking as they do today until their market converts.
AMQ: Well, you walked right into my next question, which has to do with market conversion. Can you let us know when additional states are converting? As you can imagine, that's another popular question on the blog.
PC: We do have a pretty good idea at this point of when markets will convert. The schedule isn't completely firm all the way to the end yet, however.
The reason we're not ready to publish that information is because there are a number of moving targets — some we can control and some we can't. I realize we could talk in generalities and say certain states will convert in a particular quarter or month, but there really is more work that needs to be done to nail down a more precise timetable. I don't think it would benefit anyone if we published something and ended up having to change it later.
What we are comfortable with is the Colorado will convert this November — our first store conversion! We picked Colorado because it's relatively small, and we can be absolutely sure everything is solid. (And we have great people in Colorado who will do a wonderful job with this as well!)
Then in 2010, we'll continue with the other overlapping markets: Arizona, California, Illinois, Kansas, Nevada and Texas. Toward the end of 2010, we'll begin the Eastern stores, although I don't want to say a specific state order because I think there's still a chance things will change. The Eastern states will continue through 2011, when things should be wrapped up. And we're going to limit the number of stores we convert in each event just to be sure equipment changes, facilities changes, team member training, and so forth can all be handled really well.
We're also starting a program to upgrade the Wachovia ATMs to the "envelope free" ATMs we use in most places at Wells Fargo. This change will be happening over the next year and will be pretty well complete by the end of 2010.
Again, our primary focus is ensuring all of our customers and team have the right information at the right time to prepare for conversion activities. In most cases, customers won't need to do a thing when it's time for their market to convert. If there are actions they need to take, we'll communicate them well in advance.
AMQ: Whew, a lot of information in there! So you've addressed markets converting, how about product conversions?
PC: Most products will likely convert when the markets convert, especially in the early state conversions. If there's a chance for products or services to convert sooner — like Mortgage has done — we'll do it. If you're in a product today that will be changing to something else, you will be notified well in advance that you have an option to move to a similar product or a different product.
AMQ: Well, Pat, thanks so much for your time today! Before we close, what are some things you want our readers to know?
PC: We know and understand that you want this conversion to go faster. We know you want an integration schedule. In fact, one of the blog readers, Ryan made it pretty clear when he wrote:
I've read in some newspaper articles that Wachovia branches on the East Coast won't be converted until late 2010 and "possibly not until 2011" because WF doesn't want to alienate customers. Customers will be alienated if you wait until 2011 to finish this thing. Get this train moving, put out a concrete schedule, and stick to it!
I totally understand where he's coming from. That said, our primary goal is to minimize the disruption for customer and team members before, during and after each conversion. This will require thorough work from everyone working on this merger to make that happen. It means we will do this merger integration in a way that works best for everybody. We have an opportunity to bring two great organizations together and we only have one chance to do it, so we want it to be done right!
AMQ: Pat, thank you so much again for your time and sharing this information with us today! I'm even more excited in my role as a blogger on this site now, knowing that we'll have some great news to communicate in the future as this merger integration progresses.
Why not post the information Wachovia customers in Colorado received on this blog? What are you affraid of? The proprietary/secretive approach to this merger is disturbing and very much a turn off. All Wachovia customers have a right to know how their releationships will be affected, and since you're starting already, post it!
@ Wachovia Customer, thanks for your question. While it does make sense to let customers know when their markets will convert, it would be impossible for us to know exactly what communications are being sent to customers. While there is a general "What to Expect" mailing, there are more specific mailings depending on the accounts the customer has with us and where they were opened. There is nothing proprietary or secretive about it.
Our goal is to communicate information that will impact the greatest numbers of customers in a timely, relevant manner. As always, we appreciate the feedback and continue to work to bring you the most up to date information about the integration.
You probably don't want to post them considering you've already had a privacy incident with the mailings, as reported by the Coloradoan on October 3rd. People received mailings with other customer's names on them.
I have a question regarding retail banking. When the Wachovia's merge and become Wells Fargo will the retail banking products change?
Jeff, thanks for your comment. From what has taken place so far, Wells Fargo is looking at Wachovia's products and finding ways to integrate the benefits of those products with their existing line.