Article

Wells Fargo ATMs help cardholders budget

New service lets cardholders select a monthly target withdrawal amount.

December 8, 2010

At a time when nearly everyone is counting their pennies, nickels and dimes, Wells Fargo & Co. ATMs are able to put cardholders on a budget.

Officials of the San Francisco-based bank Wednesday announced the launch of ATM Cash Tracker. "The feature enables Wells Fargo cardholders to manage monthly their ATM withdrawals," said Richele Messick, a bank spokesperson. On the ATM screen, there is a button that says, "Press here to start tracking your monthly ATM withdrawals."

Cardholders select a monthly target withdrawal amount, say $400. The software also enables the cardholder to view for the past year the amount of his monthly ATM withdrawals. The bank customer may want to limit cash withdrawals to $400 per month, for instance, but a one-year look at past ATM withdrawals shows he withdrew an average of $436 per month.

When a cardholder exceeds the monthly withdrawal amount, the software does not electronically spank the cardholder's hand and deny further withdrawals.

"If a cardholder exceeds his target withdrawal amount, we are not going to stop approving cash withdrawals. That's not what this is about," Messick said. "We want to help cardholders monitor their ATM cash withdrawals."

If a bank customer cannot stay within his budget, he has the option of increasing the amount of funds he wants to withdraw from the ATM.

ATM Cash Tracker is a bank differentiator that ensures customer loyalty, said George Peabody, director of Emerging Technologies for Mercator Advisory Group in Maynard, Mass.

"More banks are competing for customers by giving them more information about their money so they can make better decisions," Peabody said. "This is a general trend by banks. The customer is loyal because the bank is giving him more information. As a result, the customer becomes more profitable for the bank."

Wells Fargo operates the nation's third-largest ATM network with more than 12,000 machines nationwide.
 
The bank has been innovative in its use of its ATMs. The financial institution emails ATM receipts to cardholders to reduce paper use. And in the past, cardholders could make charitable donations through the ATMs to raise funds for disaster relief.

Bank officials came up with idea of ATM Cash Tracker to help customers manage what is in their wallets and pocketbooks.

"Budgeting and money management are top of the mind for customers today," said Alicia Moore, head of Wells Fargo ATM Banking. "We wanted to create a tool that would help our customers by tracking their ATM withdrawals with better budgeting."