Wells Fargo is testing voice recognition for use in mobile banking, according to The Charlotte Observer.

The newspaper reported that Wells Fargo began the technology in its mobile banking app with employees using their real bank accounts in summer 2013. Brian Pearce, Wells Fargo's head of mobile technology, told the newspaper that the bank doesn't yet have a timeframe for rolling out voice recognition to its 12 million mobile banking customers.

Nor has Wells Fargo specified the devices on which its voice recognition application will be available, the newspaper said. Pearce told the newspaper that voice recognition apps would enable customers to quickly and easily find out how much they had spent at grocery stores in the previous month, for example, a process that would be quite complicated using standard mobile banking apps.

Other financial institutions experimenting with voice recognition for mobile banking include U.S. Bank and USAA.

In April 2013, U.S. Bank announced an employee trial of a mobile feature that will allow U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature customers to use their voice to view account balances, search transactions and make a payment on their accounts in the FlexPerks mobile app. U.S. Bank's voice command feature is powered by Nuance's Nina Mobile voice-based virtual assistant technology.

Learn more about mobile banking.