Effective April 19, 2011, the NYS General Business Law section 399-zzz prohibits financial institutions from charging fees when sending paper billing statements through the mail.
Financial institutions may not charge fees or impose a higher rate on a loan product or other service if they have to send paper billing statements or if their customers want to make a payment through the mail. Also, there is no prohibition from offering a consumer a credit or other incentive to choose to make such payments or to receive billing statements by some other means, i.e., on-line. Thus, an institution (creditor) could offer a lower rate or fee, or no fee or a non-financial incentive if its customer agrees to go “paperless”. See
Checking Accounts.
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