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Credit card company forcing online statements

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Comments

  • Economme said:
    Thanks to the OP for raising this question. It's good to know others are affected, and to catch up on some prior comments. 


    I just got the email from Halifax, receiving it only hours after I had declined the incessant re-questioning most/every time I logged on to Halifax CC, asking if I want to go paperless. Receiving the email saying I was going paperless regardless, after declining it only hours earlier is a cosmic laugh, like being slapped in the face by the Imp of Perversity. Lol.

    I like paper statements, because I like to pencil reconcile against them, and staple receipts I want to keep to them. (sad but also satisfying... (old school training?)).

    I like official paper statements, because they are well designed, and seem to have some quality control applied to them.
    I have noticed that many online, so-called statements, aren't statements at all, but just lists of bare transactions. Many don't/can't print out correctly or well, or don't showing full details, like dates and opening/ closing/ and running balances. Some times the online data seems to have changed (been corrected) since the last time I looked (no frozen historic versions available?). I wonder if online 'statements' have fewer or no legal, or 'good' design, requirements applied to them, so online becomes a slippery slope towards lower quality/ confidence of consumer information.

    I also like to visually scan paper statements them when they come in, as a security check, especially for higher risk accounts, which I don't tend to do with the same frequency and rigour as online statements.


    Sometimes to fight the Imp of Perversity, you have to be perverse back ;), so, in a moment of weakness/pique I do find myself wondering what other credit cards do still offer paper statements... but I know that the Imp will always be waiting to pounce again :)

    Do you think you might be spending too much time thinking about this?
  • Guilefox
    Guilefox Posts: 81 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10 Posts Combo Breaker
    Economme said:
    Thanks to the OP for raising this question. It's good to know others are affected, and to catch up on some prior comments. 


    I just got the email from Halifax, receiving it only hours after I had declined the incessant re-questioning most/every time I logged on to Halifax CC, asking if I want to go paperless. Receiving the email saying I was going paperless regardless, after declining it only hours earlier is a cosmic laugh, like being slapped in the face by the Imp of Perversity. Lol.

    I like paper statements, because I like to pencil reconcile against them, and staple receipts I want to keep to them. (sad but also satisfying... (old school training?)).

    I like official paper statements, because they are well designed, and seem to have some quality control applied to them.
    I have noticed that many online, so-called statements, aren't statements at all, but just lists of bare transactions. Many don't/can't print out correctly or well, or don't showing full details, like dates and opening/ closing/ and running balances. Some times the online data seems to have changed (been corrected) since the last time I looked (no frozen historic versions available?). I wonder if online 'statements' have fewer or no legal, or 'good' design, requirements applied to them, so online becomes a slippery slope towards lower quality/ confidence of consumer information.

    I also like to visually scan paper statements them when they come in, as a security check, especially for higher risk accounts, which I don't tend to do with the same frequency and rigour as online statements.


    Sometimes to fight the Imp of Perversity, you have to be perverse back ;), so, in a moment of weakness/pique I do find myself wondering what other credit cards do still offer paper statements... but I know that the Imp will always be waiting to pounce again :)

    You are NOT alone in wanting to keep paper statements. There is a campaign European wide to protect us from them reducing this. https://www.keepmeposteduk.com/ourcase/

    PS also received this email from MBNA. It appears to be temporary but we need to keep pressure on them and get the media on it in case they try to pull a fast one. 
  • WillPS
    WillPS Posts: 4,694 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Newshound! Name Dropper
    edited 27 October 2023 at 10:17PM
    I don't suspect this will be what many people on this thread want to read, but...
    If you clear your balance in full every month, and your card isn't some sort of co-brand setup (I don't think LBG have any of these any more?) then unless you spend very high amounts domestically (averaging £4k+ per statement period, at least, see maths below), or slightly smaller amounts but overseas , it's very likely that your lender will lose whatever they might have gained in interchange-derived revenue just from the cost of posting your statement to you. 

    IMHO, maybe not straight away but at some point not far from now it'll be entirely fair for them to start charging to cover their costs on this vs electronic delivery, with exceptions for more vulnerable customers; or at the very least limit their availability to less competitive products as a trade-off.

    On the maths - before anyone starts up with 'that's rubbish, merchant fees are much higher than that' - that's true, but of that only a tiny amount goes to Visa/Mastercard (0.3% of txn value domestically, to be exact), and that's the only slice your lender gets a portion of. The rest is retained by the acquiring bank. Presume LBG gets all of that 0.3% (and they don't, because then Visa/Mastercard would get exactly nothing for themselves, and these are incredibly profitable companies...) and the cost of getting your statement printed, envelope'd and delivered is £1 a time (again, probably low, lets stay with it for easy numbers). That's £3000 you'd have to spend before LBG would make that £1 back in interchange.

    It's not sustainable.
  • Always good to get some maths/ figures aired on the subject, so, genuinely, thank you for the maths for a more informed debate.

    It reminds me of the Stafford Beer story of 'chopping off' unprofitable parts of the railways (Stafford Beer, The Heart of Enterprise, 1979, page 16). There will always be a least profitable portion of the curve. Hurray! we have created a 'Machine for Eating Railways'!

    The financial industry has created a whole economic infrastructure, and way of life. If we ignore the needs of some of the stakeholders (consumers), or society (protection - see previous post: keepmeposteduk for some more maths on this aspect), in the pursuit of 'profit', then what are we creating?

  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 35,270 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Economme said:
    The financial industry has created a whole economic infrastructure, and way of life. If we ignore the needs of some of the stakeholders (consumers), or society (protection - see previous post: keepmeposteduk for some more maths on this aspect), in the pursuit of 'profit', then what are we creating?
    Consumers with needs are usually protected, via equalities legislation and/or FCA regulation, but supplying paper statements to those who already have the ability to access them online is likely to be seen more as a preference than a need as such.
  • tenchy
    tenchy Posts: 486 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    edited 29 October 2023 at 4:43PM
    I got the same email from MBNA (part of Lloyds, as are Halifax) the other day. I have three MBNA credit cards. Two I operate wholly online, and the third, while operated online is set up for paper statements, due to a specific need for this particular card. I do have a printer, so it's no big deal printing off my own statement, but I object to doing so. What irks me most about this is that their reason for imposing this on customers is almost certainly a blatant falsehood. What sort of problems are they having, specifically? They're managing to send me a letter - as well as the email - to tell me about the change, so I'm sure if they can send a letter they can send a statement. Their limp excuse is hogwash!
  • badmemory
    badmemory Posts: 9,071 Forumite
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    I can detect no difference between the postal version of my cc statement & my online version.  Although I have been changed for at least a year now.  The reason I accepted with no issue was that I was worried that they would decide to charge for their account regardless just because they were not making enough money out of me.  Plus of course three quarters of the pages were just repeats of all the previous months except the %ages kept going up.  I do hope though that they are not doing this to people who do NOT manage their accounts on line as I suspect a couple of my friends could have a serious problem.
  • eskbanker
    eskbanker Posts: 35,270 Forumite
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    badmemory said:
    I do hope though that they are not doing this to people who do NOT manage their accounts on line as I suspect a couple of my friends could have a serious problem.
    Their email (quoted earlier in the thread) clarifies that they're only stopping sending paper statements to those already accessing their accounts online.
  • eskbanker said:
    badmemory said:
    I do hope though that they are not doing this to people who do NOT manage their accounts on line as I suspect a couple of my friends could have a serious problem.
    Their email (quoted earlier in the thread) clarifies that they're only stopping sending paper statements to those already accessing their accounts online.
    Op can stop online access, phone Halifax and tell them this and ask them to send paper statements. When the paper statements start coming through, start online access again.

    When he receives letter again saying we noticed you're using online access, rinse and repeat the same above process.

    If not, use a Subject Access Request to ask for statements (and other personal information if necessary). It's free. Best to do it via post as the organisation then is obliged to provide the personal info in the same medium as the request. We can make it electronically then ask for response in paper format, but I think the organisation just has to 'do it's best' to make provision (it's not bound).
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