Wells Fargo is keeping to its multiyear digital transformation path and planning further investments in its online platforms in 2023.

WHY IT MATTERS: Since 2020, the $1.8 trillion Wells Fargo has decreased its headcount by more than 10%, or 30,000 people, and there are more gross expenses within the company that can be reduced, Chief Executive Charlie Scharf said during today’s Q4 earnings call.

“We have a huge amount of manual processes inside the company, we have duplicate systems and that’s the work that we’re on,” Scharf said. “We have the ability to ration back the discretionary spend so that we do continue to improve the performance of the company.”

THE BIG PICTURE: The San Francisco-based bank’s staff reductions are being supplemented by a 5% year-over-year increase in technology spend, which reached $902 million in Q4, according to the earnings supplement.

The investment in technology and reduction of discretionary spending is helping the bank prepare for ongoing inflation in 2023, Scharf said, noting, “We expect expenses in 2023 to increase by approximately a billion dollars due to bulk merit increases, including inflation numbers, and an approximately $250 million increase in FDIC expense related to the previously announced surcharge.”

BY THE NUMBERS: Wells Fargo reported for Q4:

• Revenue fell 6% YoY to $19.7 billion;
• Net income plunged 50.2% YoY to $2.9 billion;
• Noninterest expenses climbed 23% increase YoY to $16.2 billion; and
• Non-personnel expenses increased 9% to $4.2 billion YoY.

NOTEWORTHY: The bank’s digital usership inched up 1% in Q4 to 33.5 million while mobile active customers rose 3% YoY to 28.3 million users, according to the earnings supplement.

“Our industry-leading API platform team continued the development of payment APIs for commercial and corporate clients invested in solutions to support our financial institution clients, ramped up and grew product offerings consumer lending, and began developing commercial lending solutions,” Scharf said.

FLASHBACK: Wells Fargo rolled out several products last year including: digital banking platform Vantage; automated same-day loan platform Flex Loan; and the expansion of nCino’s digital banking platform within its consumer and small business banking division.

FUTURE LOOK: Following a year of new product launches, the bank said its areas of focus for 2023 will include:

• Enhancing the Wells Fargo Mobile app;
• Improving financial digital assistant Fargo, which launched October 2022;
• Upgrading the Vantage platform; and
• Investing in automated investment platform Intuitive Investor.

“We also plan to continue to invest to expand our playing coverage in investment banking, commercial banking, wealth and investment management, and to continue to transform our technology platforms, including moving more applications to the cloud, consolidating our data centers and increasing investments in cyber,” Scharf added.

[stock_market_widget type=”inline” template=”generic” assets=”WFC” markup=”Shares of {name} ({symbol}) are trading at {price} ({change_pct}) as of {last_update}” api=”yf”].

Bank Automation Summit US 2023, taking place March 2-3 in Charlotte, is a crucial event on automation and automation technology in banking. Learn more and register for Bank Automation Summit US 2023.