Emerging Markets Driving Internet Sales Growth

The rapid growth of Wells Fargos internet payments business is due to the growing need for online payments among U.S businesses selling abroad, as well as from growth in the education, government and insurance markets. Wells Fargos international merchant payments alone reached nearly one billion in sales in 2003. Wells Fargo is a payment processor for PayPal, an eBay company, and also enables its multi-currency processing solution. Currently, PayPal reaches 38 countries and seamlessly offers five currencies -- the Euro, Pounds Sterling, Japanese Yen, USD and Canadian Dollar -- with the help of the Wells Fargo Global Payment Gateway and Wells Fargos many relationships with global sponsoring bank affiliates. The Global Payment Gateway solution streamlines payment processing with a single connection, helping companies avoid the time and expense of engaging multiple vendors and banks to separately handle local currency settlement. Some of the trends in emerging markets include: - In education, Visa saw 84.47% growth from 2002 to 2003 in electronic commerce transactions, from $1.5 billion to $2.8 billion. - In government, Visa saw 101.51% growth from 2002 to 2003 in electronic commerce transactions, from $1 billion to $2.04 billion. - In insurance, Visa saw 84.92% growth from 2002 to 2003 in electronic commerce transactions, from $705 million to $1.3 billion. University of Minnesota Goes Global As one of the first universities in the Big 10 to sell online, the University of Minnesota quickly found that its internet stores are not only popular with students but help the institution reach a global audience. In 2003, the university had $62 million in credit card receipts of which roughly 30 percent were web-based charges. Accepting credit cards over the internet via Wells Fargo actually has turned out to be a cornerstone of the schools commitment to serving the public at large. It is a symbiotic relationship: making it easier to buy books and supplies online also increases the universitys revenue. County of Orange Uses e-Payments to Improve Service and Efficiency Located in one of the more affluent communities in the country, the County of Orange, Calif., wanted to improve citizen services by accepting credit cards and electronic payments for property taxes via the municipalitys web site and by telephone. In 2003, the County of Orange collected $103 million in electronic tax payments, almost double the 2002 tax revenues. County officials also wanted to lower their transaction costs by using digital technology instead of relying exclusively on paper payments. Giving citizens the option of using either the web site or an interactive phone system also would allow taxpayers 24-hour access to conduct transactions as well as check the status of their accounts at any time. The county turned to Wells Fargo to process credit cards and electronic payments. County officials say the Wells Fargo platform helped them achieve all of their objectives and has been a big hit with taxpayers, too. County officials hope that 10 percent of all property tax payments occur through the Wells Fargo platform in the next three years. Today, roughly 4 percent of property taxes are paid electronically, Cowan says. Wells Fargo reached its record year in internet payments volume in 2003, processing nearly $12 billion in internet merchant payments. Today, Wells Fargo processes payments for more than 61,000 online merchants, and according to figures published by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Wells Fargos e-commerce processing accounts for 15 percent of the nations total online shopping volume.