Wells Fargo Chief Financial Officer Mike Santomassimo fielded criticism over stagnating consumer deposits Tuesday during Morgan Stanley’s US Financials, Payments and CRE Conference, and highlighted Wells’ digital infrastructure investment in response.
“We’ve been focused at … improving our digital capabilities and you’ve seen that kind of rollout over the last year and a half,” Santomassimo said during the conference “We’ve been continuing to work on some product simplification and experience for customers.”

The CFO’s remarks came after a stream of tech-focused announcements from Wells Fargo in recent months, including the launch of AI-based virtual assistant Fargo in October and the rollout of digital banking platform Vantage in December.
Santomassimo said he “feel[s] really good” about the bank’s moves to cut over 30,000 jobs between 2020 and the last quarter of 2022 due to digitalization.
He also addressed concerning trends over the same period, including the bank’s average deposits, which fell $107.4 billion, or 7%, year over year, in Q1. In that quarter, the bank’s tech spend inched up 2% YoY to $9.5 billion.
Santomassimo also faced long-running concerns about the effectiveness of the bank’s operations; Chief Executive Charles Scharf said in January that parts of the bank are “extraordinarily inefficient.”
“There’s work to do everywhere,” Santomassimo said. “I think, largely, that will be the case for a while, right? This is not something that you solve in a quarter or two or even a year.”






