Spanish is, by far, the most widely spoken non-English language in the country. Nearly 28 million people in the U.S. currently use the language in some capacity, and that number is growing. So it makes sense for many businesses to begin offering customer experiences that reflect the behaviors of this growing segment of the population.
Wells Fargo & Company is moving in this direction. And by leveraging another popular form of communication, that of the mobile device, it will begin offering a more convenient customer experience to Spanish-speaking consumers through an updated app.
The new app will give banking customers the option to choose Spanish as their language of choice. Wells Fargo showed interest in the feature after a new Nielsen report showed that nearly three quarters of all Latinos owned smartphones, which is almost 10% higher than the overall national average.
Available for the Apple iPhone, Android, and Windows phones, Wells Fargo hopes the new mobile app will promote heightened customer engagement levels among the Spanish-speaking population by providing a wide range of easy and accessible banking options. Users will be able to make deposits, view account balances, transfer funds, and more.
“Our convenient and award-winning mobile banking app now offers Spanish-speaking customers the option of tailoring an in-language experience to best suit their needs,” said Brett Pitts, the head of Digital for Wells Fargo Virtual Channels. “We’re proud that we continue to make improvements to our digital banking products that allow more customers to take advantage of the convenience and security of mobile banking in their preferred language.”
The new mobile app is also providing an avenue for Wells Fargo to give back to the Hispanic community. Throughout April, Wells Fargo will make a $1 contribution to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) for every customer that selects Spanish as his or her preferred language. These funds will support Latino scholarships up to $50,000 and mobile users must keep the Spanish preference active through April 30, 2015 for the donations to take effect.
“Wells Fargo’s new Spanish-language option on its mobile banking app is a much needed feature that will be enormously helpful to Spanish-speaking customers,” said Fidel A. Vargas, President and CEO of the HSF. “We’re also grateful to Wells Fargo for turning the campaign for this app into a way of adding to its already generous support of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. The app will help many Hispanic families better manage their finances, and that puts them in a better position to realize their dreams, including paying for a higher education.”
The convenient mobile app is easy to download and requires only a simple update for previous users. Wells Fargo also states that the secure app will help customers manage fraud prevention and detection, and it comes on the heels of a number of additional bilingual options already available including Spanish Text banking, account statements, call centers, and bankers fluent in Spanish in branches everywhere.
“Giving all of our customers a great experience – whether they come into a store, call us on the phone or log in from their phone or computer – is something we strive for every day,” said Pitts. “For our Spanish-speaking customers, this may also mean a desire to conduct some banking in Spanish. We want to provide a great and safe experience regardless of how they interact with us.”