January 31, 2018

Who wants to pay for a bank statement?

Treasury is undertaking a consultation into charging for paper copies of bills and bank statements.  As more and more utilities, insurance companies and banks are moving to electronic statements, some are pushing to charge for paper copies.  This significantly discriminates against people with disability who may not be able to use electronic formats.

Treasury has proposed a number of options for regulating service provides who may charge fees for paper statements.

• Option 1 — the status quo, with an industry led consumer education campaign;
• Option 2 — prohibition (ban) on paper billing fees;
• Option 3 — prohibiting essential service providers from charging consumers to receive paper bills;
• Option 4 — limiting paper billing fees to a cost recovery basis;
• Option 5 – promoting exemptions through behavioural approaches.

We believe that a prohibition on paper billing fees is the only equitable approach. See below for our submission.

 

Further information:

Treasury details of the consultation

Leadership Plus Paper Fee submission Dec 2017