Faking Green, Seeing Red

by Ron Daly 

Well, another year passes and a new one begins. And I'm just as frustrated with what's going on this year as I was with the last. 

Let's talk about financial institutions and the concept of "green". A new article from CUJournal.com talks about green attitudes and finance (click here for the full article). Apparently, about 75% of consumers still get paper statements from their financial institution. Interesting figure from the article: if everyone stopped getting paper statements and bills, 687,000 tons (or around 86,000 trees by our math [thanks to conservatree.com]) of paper would be saved...per year.

Other advantages? How about the safety of knowing your statement won't get stolen out of your mailbox or steamed open by identity thieves? How about the fact that you can do online for pennies what it costs dollars to do by mail? 

Why aren't people getting on board with this? 

Maybe it's because they don't know how, or if, this is possible. I've got a list of articles as long as your arm that show how making electronic statements the default method of receipt can save money and increase customer/member satisfaction. Here's one that shows most people LIKE getting email statements and updates (click here for the article). So what's the situation? What makes sense? 

The article suggests, and I agree, that paper statements need to go the way of the dodo. Sure, keep them around for all those die-hards who just can't cope with the Internet or love having paper copies. But odds are good that the amount of people who turn away from electronic statements and notices will be minuscule compared to the number who adopt the system and love it. The article suggests that people don't know how to take advantage of green services like online banking and statements. I say make green the default so they don't have to know how. 

The time to start doing away with costly printing and paper is now, America. Budgets have been shaved to the bone, CUs are going to have to do more with less. Online services and a diminished focus on paper are what it's going to take. If you make it easy to use and easy to see, those "green-heads" are going to get away form paper.

Comments

[SRG]

I totally agree, we are really behind the times in terms of how much we do in the financial world electronically. My boyfriend is European and can't believe how much we still use paper here in the U.S.

[Denise Wymore]

I remember after 9/11 I got a letter from Southwest Airlines, basically spelling it out for the Rapid Rewards members.

It went something like this:

"In these tough economic times, we have to look at ways to cut costs. Rather than cut people, we're going to cut out paper. That quarterly Rapid Reward statement you get - now it's now online.

Oh, and if you don't have a computer, or access to one. We're sorry."

Sincerely,
Southwest Airlines

I LOVED it - and I think you're totally right. Nothing like a good old fashioned economic crisis to shake us to our core. What's REALLY important?

Cheers!
Love the Soapbox!

[SRG]

One dilemma we're dealing with is the push to go green and getting our members to switch to online statements, but that also means they won't get our monthly member magazine that's mailed out w/ the statements. This takes away one of the main ways we have contact w/ the members and letting them know about new products and such, but I think we may start email updates in the near future to try and remedy that.

[Elliott]

I know I've come across some research that says Gen Y is more likely to read a physical piece of email than an email. This is to go along with SRG's second email; digitizing publications may reduce their efficacy for people who are used to not receiving much from the post(wo)man.

Denise also brings up an interesting point about access to computers. Maybe a system that makes the most sense is to have e-statements standard, and paper statements are opt-in.