Banks Underestimating, Underutilizing Customer Account Statements

The long-touted "paperless society" is still a long way off when it comes to consumer banking statements. Financial institutions continue to spend millions of dollars annually on the printing and postage of periodic, paper-based account statements. Today less than 10% of deposit and 20% of loan accounts in the United States have been migrated to an electronic format.

In addition to an ongoing expense line, many banks, thrifts, credit unions, and finance companies continue to regard account statements as a legal or regulatory obligation -- rather than a strategic communications vehicle that affects customers' perceptions of the institution. New research from TowerGroup notes that while bank statements are unarguably a requirement of law, they are all too often underestimated and underutilized by banks.

Perhaps the most important aspect of bank or finance company statements is that customers frequently open them. While not all consumers read their statements rigorously, they are far more likely to open and read an account statement than they are other pieces of mail received from their bank. At the very least, consumers tend to save their statements -- making receipt and retention of the information they contained more assured.

New technologies and techniques designed to enhance the presentation of account-related information have been around for a decade and are gaining ground. According to TowerGroup, as packaged software for statement creation becomes more widely used, both electronic and paper based statements will become increasingly viewed as strategic communications vehicles whose key role is to shape and direct the customer experience. TowerGroup anticipates consumer expectations of how information is presented to them from their bank to continue to increase, as consumers become more familiar with the Web and personalization capabilities available online.