Bank obsession with making me ‘paper free’

[Paft Dunk]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 24 March 2023 at 21:59

[Dingu]

Have never had an issue from anywhere around self printed bank statements on the rare occasion I need them to be honest. Including mortgage applications.

[RizzoTheRat]

Lucky you. My Santander account is set to be paperless and every time I transfer some money from abroad (used to be every month) they sent me a bloody statement about it!

[Mr Whippy]

Really a home printed statement, or a PDF, could be modified.

But then a decent home printer can probably look like a bank’s original printout.


I think they want copies just so they fulfil a box ticking exercise. But it does seem odd to specify the media and source.

[rallye101]

Lloyds online by any chance? Pain in the ass....

[Paft Dunk]

Santander.

I’m not looking for my bank to be my best friend. Just not to make things more awkward than they need to be.

[mikeiow]

Paft Dunk said:

Santander.

I’m not looking for my bank to be my best friend. Just not to make things more awkward than they need to be.

So you have paper statements, but they keep stopping them?
Weird. Been with Santander for absolutely ages, have paper copies (just 'cos I'm crazy old school at reconciling...), & they haven't stopped them.

[Chipstick]

mikeiow said:

So you have paper statements, but they keep stopping them?
Weird. Been with Santander for absolutely ages, have paper copies (just 'cos I'm crazy old school at reconciling...), & they haven't stopped them.

I am with Santander too and today revived an email saying the are going paperless.

However. It does mention the following, so you can revert to paper if you wish.

“ Once you’ve been moved to paper-free, you’ll get a confirmation email. If you’d prefer to continue receiving paper for some or all accounts, you can log on to our Mobile Banking app or Online Banking once you’ve received the confirmation email to set up your communications as you’d like them. Simply go to ‘More > My Details and Settings’ in our Mobile Banking app or ‘Account Services’ in Online Banking”

[Simpo Two]

Talking of saving paper, it amazes me that my CC company can only get about four transactions on the first page, thus necessitating twice as much paper...

[Raj28]

I'm convinced HSBC business banking are nudging everyone onto paper free by having their hole punches about a millimetre from the edge of the paper. Old ones weren't like that!

[Panamax]

My banks are constantly trying to "trick" me into going paper free by having click-through screens after login. Drives me nuts. You need original, printed copies to prove money laundering identity etc etc.

See also, Amazon, constantly trying to trick people into Prime in exactly the same way.

[Simpo Two]

Panamax said:

My banks are constantly trying to "trick" me into going paper free by having click-through screens after login. Drives me nuts. You need original, printed copies to prove money laundering identity etc etc.

See also, Amazon, constantly trying to trick people into Prime in exactly the same way.

So much of life seems to be about trickery, unfortunately. It's the unacceptable face of marketing. I note that the makers of Felix catfood don't put 'Now Only 80g!' or '20% Less!' in big on the front...

[Gary C]

Never ever had a problem with PDF copies of statements for any financial institution be it a loan or as a guarantor etc.

[NorthDave]

Santander are an absolute pain for me. My business accounts are set to paperless and they insist on sending statements. Recently they have doubled down and now send me something whenever I get payments in too.

It seems to me to a massive security risk but if I mention it to them they insist I'm already paperless. I don't open them anymore as they are out of date before they are printed. This means I miss letters from them!

[OldSkoolRS]

When I was LPOA for my Dad I tried to get it paperless just to reduce the amount of shreding I ended up doing on his behalf. Despite their continued letters suggesting that I went paperless it wasn't actually possible as an LPOA for reasons I can't recall now. They would send a duplicate to him as well (he was in a care home by then) which was redirected to me, so I got to shred twice as many bits of paper.

I wouldn't mind but it was all set up with standing orders and no other spending was necessary, so all I needed was to be able to check his account on line to make sure all was as it should be.

[juggsy]

I bank with Monzo, recently remortgaged, no issues using online downloaded copies (admittedly downloaded pdfs rather than printed scanned copies).

Also had the opposite problem with another account I have with First Direct. Kept trying to switch to paperless online, yet they kept sending me paper copies.

[NerveAgent]

juggsy said:

I bank with Monzo, recently remortgaged, no issues using online downloaded copies (admittedly downloaded pdfs rather than printed scanned copies).

Also had the opposite problem with another account I have with First Direct. Kept trying to switch to paperless online, yet they kept sending me paper copies.

Some of the traditional banks dont have the option to download proper statements from the app annoyingly.

I’ve recently done a mortgage application and had to reset all my login stuff for the “desktop” version of NatWest. Santander was fine though.

[Paft Dunk]

Good to hear re mortgage.

After my original post I had a quick look at the major mortgage providers guidance on ‘e-statements’. All of them that I looked at said they accept d/l or PDF statements.

[Zarco]

Gary C said:

Never ever had a problem with PDF copies of statements for any financial institution be it a loan or as a guarantor etc.

Me neither.

[RizzoTheRat]

My current mortgage is with the same bank as my current account, you'd think that would make life easier but I still had to send them statements (pdf) as it's a different department and I can't just tell them I'm happy for them to share my data