Wells Fargo & Company is an American multinational financial services company with a significant global presence. The company operates in 35 countries and serves over 70 million customers worldwide. It is a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Board and is considered one of the “Big Four Banks” in the United States, alongside JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citigroup. Wells Fargo, in its present form, is a result of a merger between the original Wells Fargo & Company and Minneapolis-based Norwest Corporation in 1998. While Norwest was the nominal survivor, the merged company took the better-known Wells Fargo name and moved to Wells Fargo’s hub in San Francisco. At the same time, its banking subsidiary merged with Wells Fargo’s Sioux Falls-based banking subsidiary. Wells Fargo became a coast-to-coast bank with the 2008 acquisition of Charlotte-based Wachovia.