Bank of Utica - Central New York - Mohawk Valley - Member FDIC

Green in so many ways. Our customers can conduct many transactions including transferring funds, viewing statements, tracking deposits and checks all without driving to the bank, writing checks, or using paper to print statements.

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With 70 – 80% of payments being converted to electronic transactions instead of mailing checks, we’ve reduced postage and paper that would be mailed and then destroyed or thrown away.

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The volume of ACH, Direct Deposit, and Debit Card transactions has grown tremendously reducing the amount of paper checks printed, processed, mailed back to customers and then destroyed. Also, they significantly reduce the number of trips to the bank to cash a check or make a deposit.

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We can now accept applications to open an account online. This makes it possible to open an account from anywhere saving a trip to the bank. Also, the funds used to open it can be submitted to us using ACH saving the need to write and mail a check.

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With reusable mailers, customers can send their deposits to the bank through the mail, reducing driving and consumption of gas.

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Statements are mailed with images of your checks allowing us to print 8 to 10 checks on one sheet of paper. This, together with the fact that consumers are writing fewer checks, cuts down on the amount of paper needed to produce statements. Along with most banks in the country, we now electronically present checks for payment to other banks. This reduces the need to transport checks on a daily basis around the country greatly reducing transportation and the associated consumption of gas and energy.

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We have adopted electronic media reducing large amounts of paper printed and mailed allowing for the electronic retrieval of images and statements as well as research capabilities without printing. This reduces storage of paper statements for businesses and decreasing the amount of paper that needs to be destroyed. We also now offer remote deposit capture which allows our business customers to scan and deposit their checks right from their office—again saving on gas expense to and from the bank.

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You may have noticed that we recently updated our bank signage on the top of the building facing north. What you may not realize is that the update included LED lighting that is good for 100,000 hours. LED lights are more than twice as efficient as traditional lighting and are the new standard for greener lighting. They are also environmentally friendly when disposed of because they contain no toxic elements and last so long that disposal is a minimal issue if an issue at all.

Also, when it is time to replace building systems such as air conditioning, heating units and lobby lighting, we do so with more energy efficient units which conserve use by taking advantage of digital thermostats that turn units off when the building is not in use.

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As various pieces of technology need replacing, such as printers and workstations, we make sure our new equipment is Energy Star compliant – reducing the use of energy. New printers have more intelligent sleep and wake modes to conserve energy and workstations have been replaced with smaller, more efficient models that use LCD technology to conserve energy and are more environmentally friendly when the need for disposal arises.

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We are looking into other technologies for the future, and are interested in two in particular. Mobile Banking which allows customers to perform banking at any location without having to physically come to the bank, and Electronic Statements to allow customers to download statements to their home computer instead of receiving paper in the mail. We hope to achieve these initiatives in the next year.

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