In our pursuit of simplifying life while loving the planet, one basic way to digitize life is by switching from mailed, paper bank statements to instant, online statements. Many major banks offer online banking, with the added option of online statements.  Online statements offer a better solution than paper in many ways:

• They reduce our use of paper products (by up to 6.6 pounds per year for the average American household, according to payitgreen.org).
• They reduce the clutter in our homes and mailboxes.
• They are more secure than paper statements, which are a major target of identity theft. In fact, almost 85% of identity theft occurs from paper sources such as bank statements, not from fancy online hacking. (source)

Here is a sampling of online banking provided by some of the major U.S. banks, and some hilights from each:

Bank of America: According to their website: “In 2006, Bank of America Online Banking customers saved 2,698 tons of paper by using Bill Pay, e-Bills and online statements.” Wow!

Chase: Chase explains that their online statements look just like the paper ones (the norm for online statements), and even gives an online sample.

U.S. Bank: As per all banks I reviewed, U.S. Bank offered their online statements for free.

Wells Fargo: Wells Fargo had the largest archive of all banks reviewed, allowing their customers to access up to seven years of statements!

What do you need for online statements to work?

All of the banks reveiwed here offer their statements in pdf form.  In order to view them, you will need a pdf reader like Adobe Reader.  Chances are, you already have Adobe Reader on your computer, but if not, you can download it here.

Remember that these online statements will not be online forever. If you prefer to keep a record of your statements locally, just save them to your computer.