One of the more important goals of bill presentment is the elimination of paper statements. However, most businesses cannot simply stop sending paper because many customers aren’t Internet-enabled by choice or circumstance. Most companies will have to either prod customers to shut off the paper or provide financial incentive. Since prodding is cheaper, that will be the first step for most billers.

As shown at left, Citibank greets new registrants to its Cardholder Central account management site with a message  encouraging the use of convenient email notifications instead of paper. It seems to be working. Citi has convinced more than 5% (330,000) of 6 million registered users to give up their paper statement. At $0.50 per statement, assuming all were receiving monthly statements, that’s a cool $2 million saved. Not a bad ROI for this single screen.