Many industries are “going green” and embracing the idea of working in a paperless system. Digitization services are available to help organizations transition smoothly to a paperless environment. One of the industries that require bulk document scanning and conversion is the banking sector, where processes are time-consuming, complex and involve high documentation requirements. Scanned and converted documents are duplicated from physical copies that can be stored on both offline and online (cloud storage).
Let’s look at the pros of paperless statements for the banking sector. Converting paper documents into electronic images offers benefits such as security of information, space savings, and the facility to perform full-text online searches of the documents anywhere and anytime. It helps to streamline business processes while enhancing conformity and cash management. Customers enjoy many advantages when their banks offer paperless statements:
- Less clutter: Paperless statements will eliminate unnecessary bills and statements. Once the documents are scanned and stored in a hard drive, unnecessary documents can be discarded. This will lessen the large piles of paper in the office and do away with clutter. Customers can save time that would go into arranging and sorting bills and figuring out what could be saved and what could be shredded.
- Eliminates paper statement fees: A number of banks charge a monthly “paper statement fee” from people who ask for older statements. With digitization of statements, customers would not have to pay for this service because they can print out their statement from home. Customers simply have to log into their account on the bank’s website – most banks make statement history accessible online so that users can view and print statements. This is to encourage people to move to online banking.
- Efficient record keeping: Over physical copies, one major advantage of online banking is that customers can maintain a permanent record of all their previous statements. The statement that the bank sends electronically is often stored on its website, ready for them to access months or years later.
- Prevent identity theft: One important reason banks moved to online banking is that mailing statements can create a path to identity theft. Statements carry a lot of financial information that criminals can exploit. Most banks don’t send statements directly to their customers’ e-mail. Instead, they send a notification mail that has a link to a bank’s secure website. Customers need to log in before getting access to their personal statement.
Reliable document scanning companies help banks improve customer service with fast and accurate document capture. They provide digitization services to help financial institutions capture, validate, and deliver information from all types of documents, such as online forms, checks, credit card applications, property titles, mortgage origination files, and other lending documents, and identification cards. This ensures faster document processing and improves banks’ decision-making capabilities, and also allows them to provide superior customer care.
