SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 9, 2025--
A new Wells Fargo survey released today finds younger generations are driving a major shift toward digital cash gifts and holiday tips — favoring convenience and choice over traditional wrapped presents. Insights from the consumer survey look into the ways people give holiday gifts to family and friends, and holiday tips to service workers. The findings highlight gift giving and receiving preference. The study also reveals the median gift/tip to service workers is $50.
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Key insights from the survey:
Steve Selfridge, Product Management Director at Wells Fargo, says, “Zelle ®1 users appreciate the convenience, safety, and reduced risk when compared to sending cash or checks — both of which can be lost, stolen, or delayed in the mail. More people are seeking the convenience of Zelle ®1 because the cash is delivered directly into the account of the person you’re gifting or tipping. The money is ready for the receiver to use however they wish.”
Digital gifting opportunity
The study found that while consumers do like receiving physical gifts, they also appreciate money. It also found that people are more comfortable receiving money than givers may realize.
“Many consider it to be a convenient gift option and takes the guesswork out of gift giving. People appreciate receiving a digital cash gift so they can spend the money on something they want, or even need. And, the study found that 36% appreciate digital cash because they actually do not like most of the physical gifts they receive. This is an easy way to make your friends and family happy this holiday season,” said Selfridge.
Saying thank you
In addition to gifting, the holidays are also a time to express gratitude to service workers by giving them a bonus or tip. 60% of consumers tip their service workers, such as their personal trainer, hair stylist, dog walker, babysitter, tutor, and delivery person. The survey found the median amount given to service workers is $50 and the average of holiday tips are highest in the South. Gen Z and Millennials are again most likely to provide tips via a digital payment app.
How holiday tips are given:
1 Enrollment with Zelle ® through Wells Fargo Online ® or Wells Fargo Business Online ® is required. Terms and conditions apply. To send or receive money with Zelle ®, both parties must have an eligible checking or savings account enrolled with Zelle ® through their bank. Transactions between enrolled users typically occur in minutes. For your protection, Zelle ® should only be used for sending money to friends, family, or others you trust. Neither Wells Fargo nor Zelle ® offers purchase protection for payments made with Zelle ® - for example, if you do not receive the item you paid for or the item is not as described or as you expected. Payment requests to persons not already enrolled with Zelle ® must be sent to an email address. For more information, view the Zelle ® Transfer Service Addendum to the Wells Fargo Online Access Agreement. Your mobile carrier’s message and data rates may apply. Account fees (e.g., monthly service, overdraft, Small Business Account Analysis fees) may apply to Wells Fargo account(s) with which you use Zelle ®.
Zelle ® and the Zelle ® related marks are wholly owned by Early Warning Services, LLC and are used herein under license.
About the survey
The findings are from a Wells Fargo survey, with data collection provided by Ipsos, conducted between October 30 - November 3, 2025. A sample of 2,010 American adults, aged 18 and older, were interviewed online in English, as part of Ipsos Omnibus shared survey program. The results of this research have a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points for all respondents. Surveys were collected as part of a multi-client Omnibus program, where questions on various topics are included in one interview and clients share demographic information collected.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a leading financial services company that has approximately $2.1 trillion in assets. We provide a diversified set of banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through our four reportable operating segments: Consumer Banking and Lending, Commercial Banking, Corporate and Investment Banking, and Wealth & Investment Management. Wells Fargo ranked No. 33 on Fortune’s 2025 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights, and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.
Additional information may be found at www.wellsfargo.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellsfargo
News Release Category: WF-ERS
(Photo: Wells Fargo)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran responded to U.S. President Donald Trump’s address to Americans on the war with new missile attacks targeting Israel and the Gulf Arab states Thursday, underlining Tehran’s insistence that it rejected Washington’s outreach for a ceasefire while maintaining its grip on the Strait of Hormuz.
Britain planned to hold a call Thursday with nearly three dozen countries about how to reopen the strait, through which 20% of all oil and natural gas traded passes in peacetime. The 35 countries, including all G7 industrialized democracies except the U.S., as well as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, signed a declaration last month demanding Iran stop blocking the strait. The call will discuss “diplomatic and political measures” that could restore shipping once the fighting is over.
Washington has insisted that Iran allow ships to freely transit the strait, but Trump this week has said it is not up to the U.S. to force it, and in his address encouraged countries that receive oil through Hormuz to “build some delayed courage” and go “take it.”
In his address, Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “extremely hard over the next two to three weeks,” while also insisting American “core strategic objectives are nearing completion.”
Iran's military said defiantly on Thursday that its armament facilities are hidden and will never be reached by Israeli or American attacks.
“The centers you think you have targeted are insignificant,” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, a spokesman for the Iranian military’s Khatam Al-Anbiya Central Headquarters.
Just before Trump began his nearly 20-minute address on Wednesday, explosions were heard in Dubai as air defenses worked to intercept an Iranian missile barrage. Less than a half hour after the president was done, Israel said its military was working to intercept incoming missiles.
Sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, immediately after the speech.
Following a joint statement in March condemning Iranian attacks on unarmed commercial vessels that called upon Iran to “cease immediately its threats, laying of mines, drone and missile attacks and other attempts to block the strait,” the 35 signatories were to hold a virtual meeting Thursday hosted by British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Though the oil and gas that typically transits the Strait of Hormuz primarily is sold to Asian nations, Japan and South Korea were the only two countries from the region that were joining.
“Trump’s message was that the United States can sustain its own economic and energy ecosystem, while countries dependent on regional exports will either have to buy from the United States or manage the Strait themselves,” the New York-based Soufan Center think tank wrote after the address.
“While Trump explicitly thanked U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf for their cooperation and allyship, an expedited U.S. withdrawal without securing the strait will leave many of these countries, whose economies are dependent on energy exports, in the lurch.”
No country appears willing to try and open the strait by force while the war is raging. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the group “will assess all viable diplomatic and political measures we can take to restore freedom of navigation, guarantee the safety of trapped ships and seafarers and to resume the movement of vital commodities.”
Bahrain, which now holds the presidency of the United Nations Security Council, has been working to get the world body to address the crisis as well.
Though Iran has allowed a trickle of ships through the strait, it remains largely closed. Iran has also been repeatedly attacking Gulf Arab energy infrastructure, sending oil prices skyrocketing and giving rise to broader economic problems worldwide.
Following Trump's speech, Brent crude, the international standard, rose again and was at $108 in early spot trading, up nearly 50% from Feb. 28 when Israel and the U.S. started the war with their attacks on Iran.
The rising energy prices and stock market jitters have been putting increasing domestic pressure on Trump, who used his address to offer a defense of the war while also suggesting it was close to winding down.
He acknowledged American service members who had been killed and said: “We are going to finish the job, and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.”
The U.S. has presented Iran with a 15-point plan for a ceasefire, but Trump didn’t say anything about the diplomatic efforts or bring up his April 6 deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or face severe retaliation from the U.S.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran during the war, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel. More than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million displaced, according to authorities. Ten Israeli soldiers have also died there.
Weissert reported from Washington and Rising reported from Bangkok.
The Indian flagged LPG carrier Jag Vasant transporting liquefied petroleum gas, is seen at the Mumbai Port in Mumbai, India, after it arrived clearing the Strait of Hormuz, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
