Wells Fargo name coming to the Philadelphia area

More than two years after Wells Fargo & Co. bought Wachovia Bank Corp., signs on Philadelphia-area branches are about to start changing.

Overnight from Friday to Saturday, 333 Wachovia Bank branches in New Jersey and Delaware will be transformed into Wells Fargo branches, the final step in a transition that began in 2008, during the heat of the nation's financial crisis.

The conversions of 290 Pennsylvania branches are scheduled for April.

Hugh Long, Wells Fargo's regional president for Pennsylvania and Delaware, said he is confident there will be no glitches as the bank with the most branches in the region changes colors from Wachovia's blue and green to Wells Fargo's red and gold.

"I already know everything is going to work. The standard is much higher" than merely ensuring that there are no problems with deposits being properly credited, for example, Long said. The bigger issue is: "How does the customer feel about the conversion?"

In an effort to connect with its new communities, Wells Fargo, which is based in San Francisco, worked with local historical societies and universities to create murals that will be displayed in about a fifth of the branches to start, with more planned for the future.

For example, the mural for a branch in Glassboro includes an illustration of the former Whiteney Glass Works, a 1918 photo of a local fire company, and a picture of the Hollybush Mansion on what is now the campus of Rowan University. Interspersed are images that show Wells Fargo's historical connection to Glassboro through money orders and express deliveries by horse and wagon.

Beth Currie, who as manager of eastern store strategic initiatives for Wells Fargo is overseeing the murals here, said it is a challenge winnowing down the collection of possible items for the murals.

"We always get a lot more images than we can actually use in the mural," she said.

Wells Fargo started including historical murals in its new branches in 2002, completing 1,200 of them through 2009. Last year, another 500 were done, mostly in former Wachovia branches.

The first conversions of Wachovia branches happened in markets where both banks had branches, such as Colorado and California. They were followed by markets in the south, where only Wachovia had branches. The New Jersey-Delaware area is the third Wachovia-only market to be converted.

Last year's fourth quarter, when Wells Fargo spent $534 million on the integration, and the current quarter are expected to be the most costly quarters for the conversion, Wells Fargo said.

Long said management had changed the procedure based on what happened in Georgia, Alabama and elsewhere.

For example, in those markets, Wells Fargo issued new debit cards to all customers and canceled Wachovia debit cards. The result was that two-thirds of the customer visits to branches the Saturday of the conversion and the following week had to do with debt-card problems.

This time, Wachovia debit cards will be replaced as they expire. However, "if they want a Wells Fargo card, we'll give them one," Long said.

As usual, extra technicians will be on hand to deal with normal problems, such an ATM that does not work properly, Long said. "We want to make sure a malfunctioning ATM is not seen as a a conversion issue," he said.