Wells Fargo & Co. has joined the still relatively small group of banks offering electronic statements and e-mail notifications to customers who agree to forgo mailed paper statements.
The San Francisco company has extended its online statement options to include savings and checking accounts. Customers who enroll in the service get e-mail notification that their statements are available online. Those who do not sign up can still go online and view past statements but will not get the e-mail alert.
James P. Smith, Wells' senior vice president of consumer Internet products, said customer demand led it to add the option, which was introduced last week and which he said "puts the majority of our statements online." It previously made mortgage, student loan, and brokerage account statements available online.
Wells might offer other auto-loan statements and others online at some point if customer demand warrants it, Mr. Smith said.
Moriah Campbell-Holt, an analyst at Gomez Inc., a Waltham, Mass., firm that tracks online banking, said that among the largest retail banks, online statements are "still fairly rare" but should become less so in the months ahead. "Many banks will roll this out in 2003 and the following year," she said.
Wells' approach is similar to that of several other large banking companies, such as Charter One Financial Corp., KeyCorp, and First Tennessee National Corp., Ms. Campbell-Holt said. "A few banks put statements online, but they don't make you suppress paper," she said. Citigroup Inc. does not "allow you to turn off the paper - one would assume they eventually would," she said.
As for Wells, Ms. Campbell-Holt said it still has other online opportunities, such as allowing customers to request electronic notification when their accounts fall below certain levels or when transactions above specific amounts are made.
Wells upgraded its online banking service in November to let customers view integrated summaries of all their accounts, and it says use is up. "Every month we're getting a 200% better customer adoption rate," Mr. Smith said.
Wells began Internet banking in 1995 and now has 3.5 million active consumer Internet customers. About a million of these pay bills online.
Unlike Bank of America Corp. and some others, Wells has not found the $6.95 a month it charges some customers for online bill payment to be "an issue," Mr. Smith said. The fee is waived if people maintain a balance of at least $5,000, and most customers get the service free, he said.
