Financial Forms – Traditional Paper Checks, Forms, and Invoices Are Cool Again

As print distributors evaluate their product mixes to remain profitable, many wonder whether they should continue selling printed financial products such as business forms, invoices, and checks. With the explosion in electronic documents, why should they consider this a market worth their time?

The answer is that, despite the explosion in e-commerce, the financial services industry is one of the largest users of paper. While financial companies are making the transition to electronic documents, this is a highly regulated industry that is still required to use physical paper. The reasons are varied, including disaster recovery, legal documentation, and redundancy.

Financial companies also need paper-based documents when they require physical signatures, called “wet signatures.” Anyone who has signed a document electronically and seen the nearly unrecognizable versions of their own signatures on the screen of an iPad or a desktop monitor understands why. For certain legal and regulatory entities, including the IRS, paper is simply required.

For commercial banks, credit unions, mortgage companies, and other financial companies, paper forms remain an important part of their business models.

We see a similar situation with business and personal checks. While the market is shrinking, there are pockets in which paper checks remain an important part of the mix. A March 2020 PYMNTS playbook, for example, found that 81% of businesses still pay other firms via paper checks. Even with consumers’ preference for plastic and digital commerce, checks still account for 8.3% of all payments.

Types of Forms to Sell

Top financial forms applications you should be selling? Here’s a sampling of the products available to you.

• Three-on-a-Page manual checks
• Check stock
• Deposit tickets
• Statements
• Counter withdrawal and insurance documents
• Deposit slips
• Notice of funds or wire transfer
• Cash tickets
• Loan coupons
• Credit/debit memos
• Certificates of Deposit
• Stocks and bonds
• Insurance applications
• Teller receipts

Cross-Sell and Upsell

The opportunities in the financial services market extend beyond checks, forms, and invoices. The same clients that need financial forms need other financial products, as well, including financial labels and marketing/promotional labels, window decals, and clings.

When companies are making use of paper, they need to store and organize those papers, too. That opens the door to the financial labels market. If you are selling financial forms into one account, you should be selling them financial labels, too. Companies are always looking to streamline procurement and minimize cost, and purchasing forms and labels from the same company just makes sense.

Window clings, decals, and promotional stickers are important opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, as well. When bank customers are waiting in the lobby or seated in the customer service area, that is the perfect time for your clients to promote new products and services through these visual tools.

Another Reason to Love Financial Labels

Another reason to love financial labels is that these products tend to be reprinted on a highly predictable, recurring basis. This means that you continue to reap profits without having to do much beyond the initial sale. If your clients are using our WiseLink inventory management system, they can check their own inventory, order reprints, and even set up the account to reprint labels automatically when inventory gets low.

Because financial labels are part of a company’s larger brand image, it’s important that they be of the highest quality and that their colors and overall look be consistent with the client’s other

marketing materials. The easiest way to do this is to print all of these documents under one roof.

So is selling traditional checks, forms, and invoices into the financial services industry still cool? You bet.

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Want to identify opportunities in the financial labels market? Contact us!

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