Wells Fargo Bank may be a giant in the financial-services industry, but its market share in the Spokane area is not so imposing, and that doesnt sit well with its top executive here.


Don Young, Wells Fargos community bank president here, says things are going to changeand already are. The banks Spokane County deposits jumped 24.5 percent last year, and its loans here shot up 43 percent. In May it will move its Eastern Washington headquarters into the 17-story former Metropolitan Financial Center downtown and put its name on the building, boosting its exposure here. Its also looking for additional branch locations here, or perhaps acquisitions.


Our goal is to be No. 1 in this market, but we have a long way to go, says Young.


Wells Fargo is one of the nations largest banks, with $428 billion in assets, 23 million customers, 150,000 employees, and more than 6,000 branches, says Young, who came to Spokane just a year and a half ago.


Young, 51, oversees seven retail branches, three mortgage offices, a commercial banking office, a private banking office, and three other finance company offices in Spokane County. Wells Fargo has yet to establish an Eastern Washington presence outside Spokane County, he says. Young also oversees Foothills Capital, a financer of small businesses that Wells Fargo acquired last year, as well as the Spokane investment brokerage office of Ragen MacKenzie Investments LLC, a division of Wells Fargo.


The banks main operations here currently are located at 524 W. Riverside, which it bought eight years ago when it acquired Los Angeles-based First Interstate Bank and entered the Spokane market.


In its new location in the tall, white tower at 601 W. First, which will be renamed the Wells Fargo Center, the bank will occupy about 34,000 square feet of floor space, including most of the first floor and all of the seventh, eighth and ninth floors, Young says.


The move in May will give Wells Fargo a major corporate identity in downtown Spokane and offer customers free parking and drive-up window service, says Young, whose office is adorned with wall hangings and replicas of Wells Fargos longtime corporate symbolthe horse-drawn stagecoach that delivered money and mail in the young American West.


Wells Fargo is selling its current building to Spokane developer and hotelier Walt Worthy, and will lease the new Wells Fargo Center from Worthy as well, says Young.


In addition to banking services, Wells Fargos new space on First Avenue will enable it to market an array of services at one locationincluding brokerage services, leasing, insurance, and mortgages, he says. Some of those services are now scattered at different locations around Spokane.


Plans to grow


Young says that even with the big jumps the bank made here last year in both deposits and loansto about $220 million and $140 million, respectivelyWells Fargo probably still is in fifth or sixth place in the market, with just 5 percent market share.


That modest share and the fact that the local economy is growing just 1 percent to 2 percent a year are hurdles to the banks growth, though not impossibilities, he says.


When Wells Fargo acquired First Interstate, it soon lost some of the Spokane-area market share it inherited by consolidating branches and focusing its energies on Internet banking, rather than brick-and-mortar branches, says Young.


That changed in 2000, when Minneapolis-based Norwest Banks acquired Wells Fargo, adopted its name, and moved to Wells Fargos San Francisco headquarters, he says. Following that acquisition, the new Wells Fargo diverted some of its energies away from the Internet, though its still known as one of the nations top Internet banks.


Freshening the stores is one way Wells Fargo now is attempting to attract a bigger share of the Spokane market, says Young. He says the bank is remodeling the interiors and exteriors of most of its facilities here.


He says that Wells Fargo now can provide customers all the channels to financial services, via the Web, over the phone, at ATMs, at drive-up windows, and inside its bank branches. What we can do better (than other banks) is the delivery of those services, he asserts.


Wells Fargo already is staffing up here for anticipated future growth, says Young.


The bank has increased its staff here by 15 percent in the past year, placing the number of Spokane-area employeesincluding in bank branches, investment centers, mortgage centers, and private-banking officesat about 150 workers, he says.


That number, Young adds, is larger than current business volume would justify.


We are looking to the future where we want to be, he says. We will increase revenues to drive profitability, not cut expenses.


Training also is a key, he says.


We want our bankers to be proactive and have a one-to-one relationship with our customers, Young says. Toward that end, bank tellers, who he says are the main point of contact with 80 percent of the banks customers, are trained in-house to recognize when customers appear ready to advance to the next level of financing, and then share their observations with bankers.


Although admitting that its late in the game, Young says Wells Fargo is looking for additional locations in the Spokane area, which already has seen significant branch growth from other competitors. He says Wells Fargo is looking at the northeast and southern potions of Spokane for possible expansion.


The acquisition of other financial companies is also a part of that strategy, he says, but declines to elaborate.


He views Washington Trust Bank and Bank of America as Wells Fargos top competitors in the Spokane market.


Across the border to the east, Wells Fargo commands a much larger market share than it does here, due largely to its acquisition of First Security Bank of Idaho four years ago. Still, Wells Fargo is growing faster in Spokane than North Idaho, says Young.


The banks roots in Spokane go back about 50 years with Fidelity Savings & Loan Association, which was later acquired by First Interstate.


Young has been with Norwest, and now Wells Fargo, for 21 years, working in Wyoming, Minnesota, Montana, Seattle, and now Spokane. I think Spokane is a great place to live, and our work here is just beginning, he says.