Wells Fargo Cash BackSM Card program lets pay down clients’ Home Mortgage

As homeowners continue to express their desire to pay down debt and focus on saving for the future, Wells Fargo & Company announced today it has expanded its Wells Fargo Cash BackSM Card program to give eligible customers the ability to pay down their home equity principal. Customers can also choose to automatically apply cash rewards to their eligible Wells Fargo checking and savings accounts, or pay down their personal lines and loans; or they can request their cash rewards in the form of a check or a credit to their credit card statement. Customers can also pay down their Wells Fargo Home Mortgage with the Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card®. Wells Fargo customers are making smart use of their rewards. Since 2007, when the company introduced its Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card®, a special credit card only for its mortgage customers, nearly $10.5 million has been applied to the principal on Wells Fargo Home Mortgage loans. Virtually every purchase (minus returns/credits) customers make with their Wells Fargo Cash BackSM Card or Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card® counts toward a 1 percent rebate. The rebate is applied automatically to the selected account in $25 increments, and there is no cap on the amount of rebate customers can earn. “The Wells Fargo Cash BackSM Card and Wells Fargo Home Rebate Card® are designed to reward our customers for their day-to-day spending, while helping them pay down their debt and save for the future,” said Peter Ho, a Wells Fargo product manager. “Customers are getting savvier about their money. They want to become financially successful and Wells Fargo has the products and services that can help.” New Survey Finds Homeowners Taking Action to Improve Financial Situation, Renewed Focus on Living within Their Means A new Wells Fargo quarterly survey of homeowners found that even since last quarter, there seems to be a greater sense of urgency for homeowners to improve their financial situations. Forty-two percent of respondents said they have paid down their debt compared to 30 percent the previous quarter. The survey found an even larger jump for those who have paid off debt completely: 20 percent, which is up from 9 percent last quarter. Saving is on the rise and debt seems to be becoming more manageable for homeowners, according to the survey. Fifty-five percent of respondents say the desire to save is the top influence on their spending habits this quarter and 27 percent say they’ve increased their savings up from 19 percent last quarter. However, debt is having less impact on spending compared to a year ago. This quarter, 39 percent of respondents cite too many bills as an influence on their spending down from 43 percent during this quarter last year. The survey found that homeowners are now more likely to contribute to a retirement account, while they’re also beginning to spend on their children and take a vacation, but they are not overdoing it. When asked to define “using credit wisely,” one survey participant responded, “Don’t let your eyes get bigger than your wallet. Spend only what you are reasonably sure you can afford.” Another aptly summed it up by saying, “Using credit wisely is curtailing the ‘wants’ and only buying the ‘needs.’” “We believe customers’ lives will be better if they understand their credit situation and know what choices they have when they need to borrow,” said Jamie Moldafsky of the Wells Fargo Home Equity Group and a lead for the company’s Smarter Credit™ initiative, an effort to educate consumers on the use of credit. “Whether customers are looking to establish credit, improve their credit, get credit or pay down their debt, Wells Fargo’s Smarter Credit Center can help, every step of the way.” Smarter Credit approach The Wells Fargo Smarter Credit ™ center (www.wellsfargo.com/smarter_credit) provides information and resources, which are critical given that 80 percent of homeowners are living with debt (excluding their mortgage) and 59 percent of those with debt think about their debt at least once a week, according to the survey. Below are a list of some of the products and service provided by Wells Fargo. • Debt Pay Down Solution® -- www.wellsfargo.com/paydown, a simple three-part program that can help Wells Fargo customers pay down debt. First, customers consolidate high-interest rate debt to help reduce their monthly payments through a Wells Fargo personal loan. Second, customers use My Spending Report with Budget Watch to identify “What's Left” (deposits minus spending) each month. Finally, customers can transfer “What’s Left” to the principal balance of the new loan to accelerate the pay-down. • My Spending Report with Budget Watch: A patented, free online money management tool that categorizes transactions and enables customers to track their spending by category, so they can identify opportunities to spend more carefully. It also helps customers create a budget in as few as two clicks and monitor their progress throughout the month - delivering the information customers may need to stay on budget and gain more control of their finances. • Compare Wells Fargo Debt Management Solutions -- www.wellsfargo.com/help/tools/debt_consolidate, an online tool that is designed to suggest financial products that may fit the borrower’s specific need and budget based on a series of questions such as the primary reason for wanting to consolidate their debt, types of debt that need to be consolidated and the amount the customer would need to borrow. The Wells Fargo Homeowners survey, conducted by marketing research consultancy Ipsos Marketing, polled 2,036 homeowners in September 2009 across the United States, to ask about their attitudes and behaviors toward debt and their use of credit. This is the third in a series of quarterly surveys this year and the sixth year that Wells Fargo has surveyed homeowners. Wells Fargo & Company is a diversified financial services company with $1.2 trillion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage and consumer finance through more than 10,000 stores and 12,000 ATMs and the internet (wellsfargo.com) across North America and internationally.