It functioned mostly as a marketing platform by offering customers access to brochures and product descriptions. It launched its first website on December 12, 1994. Meanwhile, Wells Fargo was exploring new possibilities of the internet. Photo Credit: Wells Fargo Corporate Archives. Advertisement for banking online using software in the early 1992. In 1989, Wells Fargo customers could access their accounts using a floppy disk and a subscription to Prodigy services. Wells Fargo started offering online account access through Prodigy in 1989, and by the mid-1990s it found that only about 10,000 of its 3.5 million customers used the service. Customers had to use floppy disks and dial up modems to connect to their information. Customers had to buy a software package and pay a monthly fee for their software’s subscription in addition to any fees charged by their bank. The sophisticated system had severe drawbacks. They could also transfer money, read news, play games, and even order groceries online using the community bulletin feature. Customers using the Prodigy service were able to access their bank accounts from the comfort of home for the first time. Prodigy, owned by Sears, offered a secure network that Wells Fargo and other banks and businesses allowed to access their own company computer systems. Other software companies realized that there was potential to become the platform of choice for customers to do their banking. Customers still had to input their transactions by hand, and there was no way for them to easily import a spreadsheet from the bank. Wells Fargo saw the potential for customer convenience, and agreed to sell the software in its branches. It allowed customers to keep detailed financial histories and even print checks. In 1984, technology company Quicken launched its new bookkeeping software. Demonstration of Quicken software’s check register (left) and check printing (right) features in 1984. Secured software on floppy disks offered some of the earliest solutions, but encrypted web-based platforms had the lasting legacy and are still used by customers today. Realizing that banking customers would start to expect their account access to extend online as well as in-person, banks started to experiment with new technologies to make banking online at home possible. In California, almost 36% of people used a computer at work or home by 1989. By the 1980s, computers had shrunk to fit on most desks, and had evolved to become more user friendly. Early computers filled entire rooms and required a dedicated team of skilled programmers to operate.
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