Wells Fargo Branch Banking Metrics ‘Relatively Stable’ In January

Though Wells Fargo is still dealing with the fallout of its major fraud scandal, the bank reported that it saw “relatively stable” trends in branch interactions in January.

Reuters reported that branch interactions fell 12 percent in December — months after it was revealed that bank employees opened 1,534,280 unauthorized deposit accounts, allowing it to accrue a total of $2 million in fees — and 4 percent from Jan. 2016, but that other metrics grew compared to a year ago.

“After factoring in day count differences and typical seasonality, trends were relatively stable in January and within our expectations,” Mary Mack, head of community banking, said in a press release.

“We have made good progress, including rolling out our new Retail Banking incentive compensation program in January, but we have more work ahead as we remain focused on strengthening our relationships with existing customers and building new ones with potential customers,” Mack continued.

Since last year’s fake accounts scandal, which led to the firing of thousands of employees and also resulted in $185 million in fines for the company, Wells Fargo has reported monthly on its retail banking customer activity in order to promote transparency.

The January report also showed that customers continued to actively use their debit and credit cards, with the usage of both showing growth compared to Jan. 2016 but a drop since December, which the bank attributed to typical seasonal slowdown after the holidays.

For the third consecutive month, customer loyalty scores were up but still showed a decrease year over year. In Jan. 2017, the customer experience survey results for overall satisfaction with the most recent visit were 77.2 percent, an increase compared to 76.4 percent in Dec. 2016. However, the number was down slightly from 77.8 percent in Jan. 2016.