Though the financial-reform bill President Obama signed into law this morning has “too many imponderables” to estimate its financial impact, Well Fargo & Co. likely will experience a combined $525 million pretax impact over the next two quarters from the effects of the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act and new opt-in requirements for overdraft-protection programs, Howard Atkins, Wells chief financial officer, told analysts during a conference call this morning to discuss second-quarter earnings.
The overdraft-protection changes are the result of new Federal Reserve Board rules that took effect July 1 and pertain to Regulation E of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (
“Since Reg E changes would not begin until July 1 for new customers and will not begin for current customers until August, the third-quarter will have limited revenue benefit, potential offsets to customer opt-in,” he said. “Q4 will potentially benefit from an increasing opt-in rate.”
The impact from the Credit CARD Act “will be relatively small, approximately $30 million after tax in the third quarter–much smaller than our peers given our significantly smaller credit card portfolio,” Atkins said.
Average credit card outstandings for the three-month period ended June 30 were $22.24 billion, down 3.1% from $22.96 billion. Card interest income was $736 million, up 0.7% from $731 million. Card-fee income totaled $911 million, down 1.3% from $923 million.
Consumer credit card net charge-offs totaled $579 million, or 10.45% of average loans, down from $634 million and 10.61% a year earlier and from $643 million and 11.17% at the end of March. Credit card loans 90 or more days past due totaled $610 million at the end of June, down 10.3% from $680 million a year earlier and from $719 million at the end of March.
Also during the quarter, Wells converted 1,484 of its ATMs to envelope-free machines. It also became what it says is the first bank to offer an ATM e-receipt option, giving online banking customers the choice to either have an ATM receipt sent to an online banking inbox or to a designated personal e-mail account (
At the end of June, Wells says it had 17.6 million active online-banking users and $3.4 million active mobile-banking customers.
As a company, Wells reported net income of $3.06 billion, down 3.4% from 3.17 billion during the same period last year. Revenue totaled $21.39 billion, down 5% from $22.51 billion.
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