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Wells Fargo & Co owns and manages the WellsTrade online trading business. It is a diversified financial services company having their offices and operations around the world. The company is based in San Francisco, California and is the second largest bank (by market cap) and fourth largest bank (by assets) in the United States of America. Among the home mortgage, bank deposits and other banking services, it ranks second largest. The company has a large base of customers from this Wells Fargo banking business.

In 2007, Wells Fargo was the only banking institution with an AAA rating from Standard & Poor’s. This rating corrected to AA- by for the year 2008 since by then the financial crises had crippled most financial institutions and banks in the country. Wells Fargo was named "The World's Safest US Bank" for the year 2007 based on the excellent ratings it received from bodies like Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s.

As of 2009, Wells Fargo has over 6,600 branches (termed ‘stores’), a network of over 12,200 automated teller machines, and a head count of 276,000 employees catering to more than 50 million customers worldwide.

Wells Fargo offers more than basic banking services. Broadly speaking, banking is no longer a stand-alone industry. The company offers a wide range of its financial services ranging from investments and life insurance to unsecured and secured credit. The objective of the company is to create wealth for its customers by offering sound financial advice through their expertise. They offer an appropriate blend of financial products and claim to offer customer-centric solutions and only those financial products that suit the customer needs. The bank aims to educate and empower its investors so as to help them to take an informed decision.

The company primarily caters to two segments. The core retail banking segment for individuals and small businesses, called the Community Banking service; and the institutional service for large businesses is called the Wholesale Banking. The trading services are offered under the “WellsTrade” name, which is referred to as WellsFargo (WellsTrade).

The PMA or the Portfolio Management Account is the premium service offered by WellsTrade. The company offers its services as ‘packages’ that help their clients save time and money. WellsTrade’s PMA was adjudged the “Best Online Brokerage Deal” by the Kiplinger’s, April 2006 research. The PMA includes a full service investment and wealth management account and a brokerage account trusts with a facility to receive a consolidated monthly statement for all Wells Fargo accounts and relationships.

The Wells Fargo banking accounts and investments accounts can be accessed anytime and anywhere using the WellsTrade interactive online platform. Features like research, money transfer between the Bank account and Investments brokerage account, checking positions, and viewing and downloading the monthly statements, following investments patterns etc are available online.

A fully customizable homepage of WellsTrade provides information like headlines scans, company specific news, market movements, trends, positions and every other information that is critical to the decision maker. A single screen access with a click of a button enables easy management of funds between various accounts, all in real time.  Investors can calculate the potential tax liabilities and tax implications of the underlying investments from the gain/loss information. Portfolio analyzer, market alerts, watchlists etc are the standard features available to assist the investor to stay informed and to execute financial decisions with ease.

A WellsTrade account offers its users a platform to deal in bonds, stocks, mutual funds, exchange traded funds, money market instruments, options and fixed return instruments. The account offers some frills that are not offered by standard service providers in this category. Services like access to mutual fund ratings from Morningstar, margin borrowing, inputs from leading equity research companies, financial planning tools; information series on wide range of product banking and insurance products help clients diversifying investments, distribute risks and take a well-informed decision. Other services like stock reports, portfolio tools and market commentaries by S&P are the features available.

WellsTrade offers around-the-clock customer service on phone by experienced professionals. The market information and access to account is available through an automated voice response system. An initial investment amount of $1,000 is expected for the broking accounts. But the fees can be waived for priority customers.