By Nupur Anand
NEW YORK Wells Fargo will expand access to a financial planning tool to its nearly 70 million customers after initially offering it to wealth clients earlier this year, the bank said on Thursday.
The Life Sync tool allows mobile users to set and track financial goals, check their credit scores and connect with financial advisers.
"We already have around 100,000 goals" set on the tool, which account for $24 billion in financial plans, said Michael Liersch, head of advice and planning at Wells Fargo.
Life Sync will allow users to invest and move money between accounts via their mobile app.
Digital offerings have enabled Wells Fargo to cut costs by reducing branch staff by 10% and branch locations by 4% from a year earlier, executives told analysts on a conference call in July.
Online financial tools can also bring in big money. Rival Bank of America's offering, Life Plan, attracted more than $55 billion in new money since it was introduced in late 2020, it said in March.
"We know that customers are looking for speed, usability and insights and the financial planning app allows them to track it any time of the day," said Michelle Moore, Wells Fargo's head of digital for consumer, wealth and investment management.
Wells Fargo, the fourth largest U.S. bank, will report its third-quarter earnings on Friday.
(Reporting by Nupur Anand in New York; Editing by Lananh Nguyen and Cynthia Osterman)
