Wells Fargo Online and mobile banking customers who provide their mobile phone number will be able to take advantage of the new service at more than 12,000 ATMs across the country. The new service will also cut down on paper waste by giving customers a convenient alternative to printed receipts.

“Wells Fargo is the first financial services company to introduce text receipts at the ATM,” said Alicia Moore, head of ATM banking at Wells Fargo, San Francisco. “It was also the first financial services company to introduce ATM e-receipts in June 2010.

“E-receipts were made available to customers in Wells Fargo stores in June 2012,” she said.

“Today, 48 percent of receipt eligible transactions at Wells Fargo ATMs result in either an e-receipt or a customer selecting no receipt. We believe the addition of the text receipt option will only increase that number.”

Environmentally friendly receipts
Wells Fargo is experiencing significant success with its mobile banking strategy. It currently boasts a mobile penetration rate of 50 percent.

Since the national rollout of mobile deposit last November, the bank has seen as much as 20 percent monthly growth in active users, who are depositing more than one million checks a month.

The bank also introduced an iPad app last December and has seen about 20 percent monthly growth in active tablet app users.

The e-receipt and text receipt strategy is part of an effort by the bank to make it easy for customers to reduce paper waste.

Other benefits of text receipts include that they are secure since there is no printed information that can be tossed or lost and they bring added convenience for users tracking their transactions.

Customers can have an ATM receipt sent to their mobile phone by text by selecting “Text Receipt” on the receipt selection screen.

A text receipt is sent to the user’s phone within minutes that includes a description of the transaction, which account was used, available balance for the account, the time and date of the transaction and the identification number of the ATM.

Customers also have the option to have a receipt sent to an Online Banking inbox or to a designated personal email account. Customers may also select to print a receipt or to not get a receipt at all.

Fastest growing channel
Customers who want to receive text receipts but do not have a mobile phone number on file can provide this information at a local branch or log into Wellsfargo.com, click on the “Account Services” tab, and select “Update Contact Information.” Customers can also call the bank to update this information.

Wells Fargo launched its text banking service in 2007, which enables users to instantly transfer funds on demand between eligible accounts and to transfer funds to or from an account based on preset balance alerts.

“We launched mobile banking in 2007 to let customers check balances, view transactions and transfer money,” Ms. Moore said. “Since then, mobile has become the fastest growing channel in company history and we now have more than 10.5 million mobile banking customers.

“We’re constantly working to make our customer experience even better, and we believe text receipts offer significant benefits,” she said.

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York