Bank statement

Historically they have been printed on one or more pieces of paper, and either mailed directly to the account holder or kept at the financial institution's local branch for pick-up.

[1] An aggregation service only lets the software view an account balance, not actual transactions.

Some countries such as Japan never had a tradition of mailing statements, with individual account holders being expected to keep track of deposits, withdrawals, and balances using their own passbooks at ATMs.

The switch normally requires express customer consent, which is typically obtained through an online banking system.

In addition, customers could receive statements more promptly, and not be dependent on the postal delivery service.

However, an electronic statement can be easier to obtain than a physical one through computer fraud, data interception, and/or theft of storage media.

A customer tracking the same account as an asset would reverse the debits and credits from what appears on the statement.