What (UK) laws/regulation exist around the necessity for banks to send paper letters/post?

Grumpy_chap

I always receive the "annual statement" by post and it always starts with "we are required by law to send you an annual statement of fees"
Whether the law requires it to be by post, I cannot confirm.
It's the most useless thing the law could possibly require.

wmb194

Grumpy_chap said:

I always receive the "annual statement" by post and it always starts with "we are required by law to send you an annual statement of fees"
Whether the law requires it to be by post, I cannot confirm.
It's the most useless thing the law could possibly require.

Apart from a couple of debit cards I don't remember e.g., Chase, Monzo or Starling sending me anything in the post. Sometimes it's down to a company's interpretation of the law. The OP's wasting his time complaining to the FCA and FOS, he should just move on.

TheBanker

ldexterldesign said:

Thanks all

[FCA] & [FO] it is then!

Cheers

[FCA]: fca.org.uk
[FO]: financial-ombudsman.org.uk

I am not sure that either of these organisations will be particularly interested.

The FCA as a regulator have limited resources which they focus on areas that they think are causing harm to customers. Persistant overdraft debt, potential unfair commission in the motor finance sector, retaining access to cash are examples. I don't think someone receiving a paper document is going to concern them too much, they will probably be more concerned about whether the customer is receiving the correct information than the format it's being sent in.

And FOS will say it's a commercial decision for the bank as to how they decide to issue their documents, and FOS are not a regulator so cannot tell a bank to change its procedures.

There are plenty of banks to choose from - if your current bank does not meet your needs then it would be more productive to spend your time choosing another bank, rather than wasting the bank's time, the ombudsman's time and the regulator's time with a complaint.

TheBanker

wmb194 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I always receive the "annual statement" by post and it always starts with "we are required by law to send you an annual statement of fees"
Whether the law requires it to be by post, I cannot confirm.
It's the most useless thing the law could possibly require.

Apart from a couple of debit cards I don't remember e.g., Chase, Monzo or Starling sending me anything in the post. Sometimes it's down to a company's interpretation of the law. The OP's wasting his time complaining to the FCA and FOS, he should just move on.

It's also down to the systems the bank uses. For the 'traditional' banks, everything will have been set up to be produced as paper. Over time most banks have migrated most of their communications to digital channels, but each letter/document has to be migrated and it takes time and effort, and costs money. Whereas Chase, Monzo and Starling are digital by design.

Every bank I've worked for has been moving their letters and documents to digital - for no other reason than it saves the bank an absolute fortune in terms of printing and postage costs. But each document migrated needs changes to systems, extensive testing and so on - it's not a simple job. 

wmb194

TheBanker said:

wmb194 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I always receive the "annual statement" by post and it always starts with "we are required by law to send you an annual statement of fees"
Whether the law requires it to be by post, I cannot confirm.
It's the most useless thing the law could possibly require.

Apart from a couple of debit cards I don't remember e.g., Chase, Monzo or Starling sending me anything in the post. Sometimes it's down to a company's interpretation of the law. The OP's wasting his time complaining to the FCA and FOS, he should just move on.

It's also down to the systems the bank uses. For the 'traditional' banks, everything will have been set up to be produced as paper. Over time most banks have migrated most of their communications to digital channels, but each letter/document has to be migrated and it takes time and effort, and costs money. Whereas Chase, Monzo and Starling are digital by design.

Every bank I've worked for has been moving their letters and documents to digital - for no other reason than it saves the bank an absolute fortune in terms of printing and postage costs. But each document migrated needs changes to systems, extensive testing and so on - it's not a simple job. 

Yes, Barclays Stockbrokers only began to offer a paperless service when it migrated to a completely new IT platform, in the process becoming Barclays Smart Investor. Before this I was drowning in paper.