Carbonite protecting your e-statements

Financial institutions have for years been trying to move their clients to online statements and correspondence. Some have succeeded, most I bet have not.

They all go about it in different ways. Some simply offer a small incentive that gradually moves a few a cross the line.  A campaign run by a company I recently worked for used the environmental angle (which is also very common). What was really surprising was that the amount of paper being saved was actually minimal.

My opinion, is that most people continue to insist on paper statements because they don’t trust their computers. If their computer crashes, the likelihood is that they would lose it all. Unfortunately, the more hi-tech these computers are becoming the more likely they are to crash.

If that happened, they would need to ask for it all again (particularly at tax time). This time though, the financial institutions would most likely charge them (when it was free in paper form the first time).

There has been some recent talk (in the media) about smart statements. In summary (my take on this) it’s about letting customers control what information they get and when they get it.

I think this is all great, but it doesn’t tackle the fundamental question of why most people still receive paper statements when more than 50% of us are regularly banking online.

A financial institution in the US called Wells Fargo recently launched a service called vSafe. It is an online safety deposit box for electronic records. Even though it’s not a free service (1G = $5 per month US), the idea is encouraging and it certainly compliments their online strategy.

Financial institutions in Australia need to begin looking at offering similar services.  With more than 5 million now using broadband and more than 50% banking online, the environment is right for a broader online offering.

Solutions such as Carbonite can offer affordable, automated online backup for their customers. Carbonite is by far the cheapest solution in Australia and its security is bank grade. If clients knew that they would be protected should their PC crash, then the argument against moving to paperless statements would be significantly weaker.