Reasons to Go Paperless

Why you should elect to receive digital bills and statements instead of mailed copies

If you’re inundated with requests by utility providers, department store credit cards, and insurance companies to “go paperless” but haven’t made the switch to digital statements yet, you’re missing out on some great benefits.

Here are three major reasons you should opt to receive your bank statements, bills, account balances, and policy contracts via email instead of the mail carrier.

Better for the environment

The most obvious reason to go paperless is to reduce paper usage. By opting for digital statements, you’ll be saving trees and helping the environment. Plus, fewer billing statements means less demand for paper and less air pollution from paper production. It’s an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint, since paper waste is a large component of landfill waste.

Less clutter

When you receive a letter in the mail, you have to decide what you’re going to do with it. Do you file? Shred it? Throw it away? If you don’t take action, you’ll quickly develop a pile of clutter on your countertop.

If you receive your statements via email, you don’t have to worry about physical clutter. Switching to paperless billing means you'll never misplace a bill in a pile of junk mail, nor will you ever accidentally shred or recycle an unpaid bill because it decided to hide in the pile of credit card solicitations on your desk.

You can still label, sort, and archive your digital statements similarly to filing paper printouts, but you can do so on your computer without having to find space for a filing cabinet. And if you’re worried about losing your records over time, some companies let you download your statements to save as PDF versions on your desktop.

Tighter security

You may assume that emailing financial information would be less secure than sending in through the mail, but many financial experts say the opposite.

Consider how easy it would be for a thief to steal your mail or find it in your dumpster. It’s a far easier feat than hacking into your private records on your computer network. Since statements aren’t mailed to your home, mail thieves won’t get access to your credit card number if they intercept your mail. How is this more secure? Emails from your credit card issuer should never contain your full account number. So, even if a scammer hacks their way into your inbox, they'd still have to hack their way into your bill provider's online account to access sensitive information.

Online statements are free for all Washington Trust Online Banking customers. To learn if it’s right for your needs, talk to a Washington Trust Banker today, or click here to learn more about online banking.