SAN FRANCISCO - Wells Fargo & Co. will offer its customers online storage for digital copies of important documents.

The digital service, known as Wells Fargo vSafe, would allow customers to store and organize copies of important materials such as financial statements, loan and tax documents, wills, passports, and birth, marriage and death certificates.

Wells Fargo plans to roll out the service to its customers this year. vSafe would be integrated with the bank's existing online banking services.

Wells Fargo has 10 bank branch locations in Boulder and Broomfield counties.  It leads the Boulder Valley for market share of deposits with 14.93 percent.

"Wells Fargo has stood as a symbol of strength and security for 156 years and online storage is a natural extension of that historic legacy," said John Stumpf, Wells Fargo president and chief executive, in a press release.

"By protecting information in an electronically secure and centralized location, customers can easily access and recover copies of critical documents in the event of a natural disaster, theft or hard drive crash, or while traveling,"

Customers will be able to store virtually any popular file format, such as word documents, PDFs, Excel spreadsheets, photos, audio and video. An interface will allow customers to organize the documents into standard or custom folders. They could also chose to have the bank automatically upload documents, such as financial statements.

All data will be encrypted. Optional security devices are available for customers who wish to have an additional layer of security.