Who Needs Paper? Go Green with Online Banking

We can save 16.5 million trees and avoid 3.9 billion tons of greenhouse gases … every year … if we do all our banking and bill paying online. These are the key findings from a recent study conducted by the Javelin Strategy & Research.

According to the report, "2007 Online Banking and Bill Payment," over half of US households are already cyber-banking, with about a third of us paying bills via the Web. And if we totally eliminated paper checks and bills … every year … we would also:

• Save 2.3 million tons of wood.
• Reduce fuel consumption by enough to power up homes in San Francisco for an entire year. (That's where Credit.com is based!)
• Decrease toxic air pollutants by the equivalent of having 355,000 fewer cars on the road.
• Reduce toxic wastewater by 13 billion gallons.

According to the report's author, Mary Monahan, "Bankers can meet consumer needs while providing vital environmental benefits. In addition, emerging features such as two-way mobile or email alerts … can transform today's overwhelming flood of online information into an experience that is green, safe and practical for everyone."

We're All in It Together
Javelin's study finds that with the current state-of-the-art for online money management:

"… emerging technologies actually fulfill common needs, ranging from the basic (access to one's complete financial picture) to emerging capabilities (mobile banking and payments, live chat, banking blogs, Web 2.0 bank-sponsored community forums, or bulletin boards). Companies can also provide important safety advantages with paperless options that minimize criminal mail access, user-defined activity alerts, fraud-loss guarantees and the ability to safely log in and monitor activity from nearly anywhere."

Sounds good to me! What do you think?

Nancy Castleman – Co-author of "Invest in Yourself: Six Secrets to a Rich Life" and founder of Good Advice Press. Nancy has spent the last 23 years teaching people how to get out of debt, save money, and live better on less. She writes on all these subjects for CreditBloggers.com.

Comments

[Gerri Detweiler]

There are a few companies that still don't offer online payments, make it difficult or even worse charge a hefty fee for online payments. Hopefully they'll catch up before too long.

[Gerri Detweiler]

Did you see the YouTube Video with the 300 page iPhone bill? Definitely worth a minute to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdULhkh6yeA