HSBC Forcing online statements

GTR_King

Most people are now going digital with their banks e.g using mobile banking/Online statements etc...
I feel banks will charger for paper statements in the future e.g £5 a month or free if you choose online statements as they will wanna help then environment,
 
But wonder how the older generation will cope with online statements when they used to paper copies for years. 

Thrugelmir

GTR_King said:

But wonder how the older generation will cope with online statements when they used to paper copies for years. 

Over time the demand will naturally disappear. 

GTR_King

hopefully that will be the case, but by the time that happens most people will have gone digital 
I still prefer paper statements on my main account, but my non main accounts are digital statements 

Emmia

j.p said:

I see people clinging to paper statements because they want to use them as "proof of address" when they open new accounts.
It should be enough to print at home an online statement and send that, but it wouldn't look "professionally printed" or "authentic" and it might be rejected.
So basically institutions are delegating unto staff to judge whether a statement they get from a new customer opening an account is real and trustworthy. I reckon they'd be scrutinizing the print in front of them as one scrutinizes a £50 note to see if it looks real. Staff who probably have no special training to do that; and anyway, couldn't be trained into detecting fakes of every variety of statement that is currently circulating in the market.
This goes far back, of course, to society placing more trust in that which is written and less on what it is said, or hand-written (or copied).
But they do not get, that if instead of a paper statement I send the PDF of an online statement, that's much easier to verify for authenticity in many cases because the digital document will be signed with a secure certificate from the bank, and it couldn't be altered or it would need a new signature to verify the new contents, which I cannot produce.
So banks are telling us they request paper statements to open accounts to be more secure, when in fact it is a fudge; the means to obtain foolproof security are available but the banks haven't woken up to those yet.

The Civil Service security/pre employment checks don't accept printed pdf statements - only ones sent via the post.

HSBC also refused PDFs and branch printed and certified copies for a Barclays account I have when we applied for a mortgage. 

I now get printed statements every 3 or 6 months (depending on account) to reduce my filing time, and to ensure I can produce the right documents if needed.

GTR_King

Most places will accept printouts from the branch or you can just order a copy online and give them that as it very easy to edit the PDF Now days with software etc