Switch to online banking and bill paying and help to save the planet.
That's the message a number of banks and businesses soon will be using to persuade consumers to go paperless.
"Many consumers do not realize the full impact their household could make by simply asking to turn off paper bills and statements once they've adopted online banking," Stuart Williams, co-chair of the Electronic Payments Association's new "green coalition," said in a prepared statement.
A new study by Calif.-based Javelin Strategy and Research, for example, found that if all the nation's households just received and paid bills electronically, they'd save 16.5 million trees each year, or the amount of lumber needed to build 216,054 typical single-family homes.
The Electronic Payments Association's "green coalition" also plans to play up the environmentally friendly aspect of going paperless in a campaign it has begun planning. It will likely consist of information large companies can use to encourage their customers to go paperless.
"Consumers want to take individual action that can collectively lead to real impact on the environment," said Craig Vaream, the other green coalition co-chair. "Through this initiative, we want consumers to recognize that choosing electronic bills, statements and payments provides the additional benefit of eliminating the unnecessary waste of natural resources."
The ability to go online to do everything from checking bank statements to getting bills and paying them has been around since the mid-1990s when such institutions as Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo rolled out the option. But it's started to catch on only in the last few years.
Today, more than half of all households in the United States make at least one recurring payment online and four out of five consumers who use it say they are very satisfied with it, according to the Electronic Payments Association.
And direct payment, which is an automated debit from a customer's account, increased by 6.1 percent to 4.7 billion payments in 2006, it found.
At Verizon, about 1.7 million customers now get their statements online, said Angeline DePauw, the utility's director of electronic remissions. But that accounts for only about 5 percent of all the billing Verizon does.
The company is focusing on getting the 8 million customers who currently pay their Verizon bill online but continue to get paper statements to make the switch to online statements.
"They're the ones who are more apt to do it," DePauw said.
Currently, when Verizon customers sign up for online banking, their financial institution automatically enrolls them in the Electronic Billing Information Delivery System (EBID) for 90 days.
EBID will post a note on their personal online bank page saying how much their next Verizon bill is and the due date, plus provide a link to the utility company.
"Most people, if it looks reasonable, will pay," DePauw said.
Online banking also has become popular at Wachovia spokeswoman, said Christine Shaw.
The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank's online banking features allow customers to see all of their Wachovia accounts--including bank accounts, mortgages and investments--on one site. They also can see scanned images of their checks, and set up recurring bills so they're paid automatically.
"It's convenient," said Shaw. "You don't have to pay for a stamp, and it's real easy to transfer funds from one account to another. You can look at all your transactions online and review them online."
Wachovia also encourages customers to check their accounts frequently to head off identity fraud, she said.
Going paperless cuts down on the risk of identity fraud, which is more like to happen offline where family, friends and employees have access to financial statements, than online, according to studies done by both Javelin Strategy and Research and the Better Business Bureau in 2003.
Bruce Cundiff, Javelin's online payments expert, said his company also has found that online customers are more likely to catch identity fraud early because they can monitor their accounts anytime, not just when monthly statements arrive in their mailbox.
Soon, online customers will even be able to get messages about their accounts on their cell phones, and contact their bank, credit-card company or other financial institution immediately if something seems amiss, he said.
Mobile devices allow the conversation to be two-way, something Javelin calls "interactive financial messaging," Cundiff said.
"Say I got a mobile message saying, 'Are you trying to send $5,000 to Eastern Europe?' I can e-mail back, 'No, don't let it go.' It's actually preventing fraudulent activity by stopping it in its tracks."
Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
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Striata is the global leader in Secure eDocument Delivery.
Striata's Secure eDocument Delivery and Email Bill Presentment & Payment (EBPP) are solution sets - software applications and adoption methodologies - that deliver rapid reduction in operational costs, quicker payments and enhanced customer service by revolutionising the way bills, statements, contracts, policies, annual reports, payslips and other high volume system-generated documents are delivered and paid.
Unlike today's online presentment solutions, which insist on customers visiting and registering at a website, Striata’s complimentary solution (targeting customers still receiving paper) delivers feature-rich, registration-free, navigable and interactive secure email documents directly to their inbox and enables ‘one-click’ electronic payment without them having to visit a single web-page.
This innovative and strategic change from ‘pull’ to ‘push’ dramatically increases customer adoption of electronic communication, allowing Striata’s clients to achieve rapid ROI from their self-service and e-communication investments.
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