HONG KONG: Beginning in 2011, HSBC personal banking customers will have to pay fees for receiving paper statements, as the bank strives to trim 40 percent from its paper consumption by the end of next year.

From October 11, HSBC's personal banking customers will be able to receive email or SMS monthly alerts, whenever new statements are available, as an alternative and complement to mailed hard-copy paper statements. Of course, accessing the statements and details will require online banking registration with HSBC. They will, in the meantime, retain the option of continuing to receive their monthly mailed paper statements.

Although paper-based monthly statements will remain free for now, customers who choose to forego the green initiative will incur a HK$20 fee per account per year from January 2011. All fees will be donated to charity, the bank said yesterday. The bank will exempt charges for two paper statements per customer and client every year.

Customers aged 65 and above, as well as recipients of the government's comprehensive social security allowance and disability allowance, are eligible for a fee waver if they opt for paper statements.

"This initiative is in response to what many of our customers want, as well as supporting the bank's continued efforts to manage our environmental footprint," said Peter Wong, group general manager and executive director for Hong Kong and the mainland.

Louisa Cheang, HSBC's regional director of personal financial services in Asia-Pacific, said the bank has printed more than 100 million letters to its 4 million customers every year. "We hope the plan can help cut paper consumption by 40 percent in 2010," Cheang told reporters in Hong Kong yesterday.

(HK Edition 08/25/2009 page4)