Wells Fargo Bank will soon offer its retail banking customers a personal online safe-deposit box that it calls "a natural extension" of the company's 156-year security legacy.

The Wells Fargo vSafe service is the first online storage solution offered by a financial services company, according to Katherine McGee, senior vice president of Wells Fargo's Internet Services Group.

According to McGee, vSafe "offers secure storage, and it's available through the Wells Fargo online banking session, so we leverage all the security we use for online banking," as well as additional measures that encrypt information as it crosses the Internet and while it's stored. An RSA SecurID token that adds a layer of authentication is an available option for a one-time fee of $25.

McGee says there will be different plans available, depending on the amount of storage required. For $4.95 per month, you can buy 1 gigabyte of storage -- the equivalent of about 10,000 documents, she said. For 3 gigabytes customers will pay $9.95 a month, and $14.95 will buy you 6 gigabytes.

While the offering may fare well with existing Wells Fargo customers, it will compete with some well-established -- and cheaper -- services such as Mozy, which offers 2 gigabytes for free and charges $4.95 a month for unlimited storage, as well as Microsoft's SkyDrive, which offers 5 gigabytes for free.