Experts say your financial security is important when it comes to keeping your banking statements. 

When it comes to shredding your paper bank statements, experts say you should keep them for the minimal amount of time; or instead of keeping your paper documents, eStatements are another option. 

Susan Allardyce, Marketing Specialist at Home Bank, says, “There are thieves who are always finding new ways to steal your financial information so we encourage our customers to only keep their printed documents for the minimum amount of time. So a monthly statement could be kept for a year, and an annual statement, just like a tax return, should be kept for about seven years.” 

Shredding your documents is a great way to protect your personal and financial information, but bank eStatements can be efficient. 

“So many of our customers do op for e statements because then they don’t have to worry about shredding them. They’re able to get them on the exact day every day when they’re inspecting them. it’s often times easy for them to get that information to their CPA as well so we encourage those e statements,” explains Natalie Lemoine, Marketing Director for Home Bank. 

Experts say you should keep your printed documents for a minimal amount of time. 

Allardyce adds, “Tax returns and the documents that you use to prepare your taxes should be kept for seven years just in case you need them again, but after that time it is safer to get rid of them and shred them at an event like today’s.”     

Home Bank offers eStatements and text alerts to notify you if any fraudulent activity happens.