News

Wells Fargo expects to complete Wachovia ATM upgrade this year

August 5, 2010

Wells Fargo & Co., the nation’s third-largest bank owner of ATMs, expects to complete replacement of its entire fleet of former Wachovia Corp. ATMs by the end of the year, but the bank has not yet set a completion date for upgrades to its legacy Wells Fargo ATMs.

The San Francisco-based financial institution is upgrading approximately 5,000 Wachovia machines to envelope-free ATMs, replacing machines that require cardholders to place their cash and checks into an envelope before making a deposit, said a bank spokesperson.

Wells Fargo is replacing or has replaced deposit-taking as well as cash-dispensing Wachovia machines in 22 states. “We also replaced the cash dispensers because we wanted all of our ATMs to have the same look and feel,” the spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson did not name the ATM manufacturer or manufacturers from which Wells Fargo purchased the machines, but major banks usually buy ATMs from NCR Corp., Wincor Nixdorf AG and Diebold Inc.

Gil Luria, an analyst with Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, said Wells Fargo has purchased the majority of its ATMs from Wincor Nixdorf, and he assumes that Wincor Nixdorf manufactured many of Wachovia’s new machines.

The ATMs provide a variety of services for bank cardholders.

All the ATMs are loaded with “You Know Me” software, which bank employees developed in-house. The software remembers the amount of funds a cardholder normally withdraws; the software conducts transactions in several languages, including English, Spanish, Chinese, Hmong, Korean and Vietnamese. “You Know Me” also provides transaction shortcuts for cardholders and voice instructions in English and Spanish for the visually impaired.

In October 2008, Wells Fargo purchased Wachovia, which is based in Charlotte, N.C., for $15.1 billion in an all-stock deal. With the Wachovia contract, Wells Fargo’s ATM network expanded to 12,352 ATMs from approximately 7,000 Wells Fargo machines prior to the deal.

The upgrade of Wells Fargo’s legacy machines, however, is continuing. Last October, the financial institution upgraded 2,970 ATMs in California to envelope-free ATMs. Earlier this month, the company announced that it will convert 50 ATMs in Alaska to envelope-free machines.

Currently, Wells Fargo owns 6,500 intelligent-deposit ATMs nationwide, which according to the Environmental Defense Fund paper calculator, has eliminated nearly 100 million envelopes, which equates to 600 tons of paper or 11,681 trees. Wells Fargo online banking customers also can request that the bank e-mail their ATM receipts to them.

In addition to being environmentally friendly, the intelligent-deposit ATMs reduce the cost of the machines’ operations, Luria said.

“Envelope-free machines cut the cost per transaction to 50 cents from $2,” he said. “They reduce the frequency of armored car pickups of the envelopes, which must be transported elsewhere, where someone opens them to scan and clear the contents.”

Envelope-free ATMs also reduce or eliminate the need for audits. An audit occurs when a cardholder deposits an envelope into an ATM, but forgets to put cash or checks into the envelope. When a bank discovers the mistake, the cardholder may argue that he did deposit funds into the envelope.

To resolve the problem, the bank conducts an audit, which can be costly. With envelope-free ATMs, cash and check deposits appear on the ATM’s monitor, and the cardholder either approves or disapproves the transaction.



 


 


 
.

 

Included In This Story

---

Diebold Nixdorf

As a global technology leader and innovative services provider, Diebold Nixdorf delivers the solutions that enable financial institutions to improve efficiencies, protect assets and better serve consumers.

Request Info

Learn More