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Media Contact: Doug Caldwell
(704) 715-2006

April 20, 2006
Wachovia.com Tops Two Leading Industry Surveys
For the second year in a row, Wachovia's online channel ranks highest in customer experience and satisfaction

Charlotte, N.C. – For the second year in a row, Wachovia.com topped Keynote’s online customer experience ranking for prospective customers and site responsiveness. It also ranked at the top of the comScore study that measures customer satisfaction with bank Web sites.

Wachovia has maintained the highest Web site satisfaction rating in the comScore survey for two years running, with 73 percent of visitors saying they are very satisfied or satisfied. Wachovia’s nearest competitors in this category each had 69 percent of customers responding in this manner. The study noted a strong connection between satisfaction with the overall banking relationship and satisfaction with the Web site.
“These findings validate the tremendous work that has been done to ensure we are providing a site that is valuable to our customers and prospective customers,” said Gloria Chance, chief eCommerce officer. “No matter how customers come to Wachovia, we want to ensure they have a first-class experience – whether we are serving them in a financial center, through the call center, or online.”
In addition, Wachovia ranked first in the Keynote Customer Experience Rankings, an overall measure of customer experience across the more than 250 metrics measured in the study. It maintained its position based on the ease with which prospective customers could explore its Web site and online banking functions, as well as strong satisfaction with its customer support. Wachovia was also viewed as the most “helpful” online banking site.
Keynote also ranked Wachovia No. 1 in site responsiveness – the time it takes for pages to load and perform basic transactions.
Keynote’s customer experience study of banking Web sites measures a number of key factors dealing with online customer experience, including assessment of the home page, ability to find account information, ease of exploring online banking, ability to open an account online, ability to quickly locate privacy and security information and simplicity of locating customer support information.
The study also called attention to a bank’s brand reputation online, noting “Wachovia's success in appealing to prospective customers translated into a significant brand boost for the company, with two-thirds (66%) of prospective customers having a strongly positive image of the bank after experiencing the site, as opposed to just 14% expressing a strong brand preference before experiencing the Wachovia site. Wachovia experienced a brand boost nearly two times greater than the industry average. The positive online experience also made Wachovia the most successful bank in terms of online customer acquisition.”
More than 3.4 million customers use Wachovia’s free online services including account alerts, BillPay, banking and brokerage.

About Wachovia

Wachovia Corporation (NYSE:WB) is one of the nation’s largest diversified financial services companies, providing 13.4 million household and business relationships with a broad range of banking, asset management, wealth management and corporate and investment banking products and services. Wachovia operates as Wachovia Bank through 3,159 offices in 16 states from Connecticut to Florida and west to Texas, and, until merger integration activity is completed, will continue to be known as Western Financial Bank in California. Two core businesses operate under the Wachovia Securities brand name: retail brokerage in 49 states and in Latin America, and corporate and investment banking in selected industries nationwide. Globally, Wachovia serves clients through more than 40 international offices. Online banking is available at wachovia.com; online brokerage products and services at wachoviasec.com, and investment products and services at evergreeninvestments.com. Wachovia had assets of $541.8 billion, market capitalization of $90.2 billion and stockholders’ equity of $49.8 billion at March 31, 2006