The state of the Wells-Wachovia integration

There are a bunch of high-profile tech integrations underway: Smith Barney Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase Washington, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and of course, Wells Fargo Wachovia. In the case of the latter, executives have touted some of the company's early successes to Wall Street & Technology. 

The mortgage platform was unified across the companies. Also, the payment systems were merged such that Wachovia branches could accept payments from new Wells Fargo mortgage customers. But the real work lies ahead. You could say that for all the high-profile integrations under way. Martin Davis, head of the Technology Integration Office for the Wells-Wachovia effort, notes how trying this can be. While people tend to support the technology from their existing employer, reverting to what they know and understand. Wells Fargo's effort started with the Wells system. But there were cases where Wachovia had a clear advantage and that system won out--an example is Wachovia's brokerage platform. There's also an opportunity to launch new technologies, like virtualization.  

For more:
- here's the update from Wall Street & Technology

Related Articles:
How to deal with IT staff in a merger
Will SOA save bank mergers?
Tough integration ahead for Wells and Wachovia