Standard Life annually mails over 3.2 million pension statements and the company is keen to provide customers with choices in how they receive communications. Customers can now elect to receive pension statements online and receive a faster service which is more secure, and at the same time kinder to the environment.

A recent Standard Life pilot using email and text messages to communicate with pension scheme members proved very successful. Most customers were happy to receive pension information in this way and significantly, more than half of those who didn't want to be included in the pilot the first time around have since said they want to be included in the future.

Garry Morrison, Customer Service Director for Group Pensions said: "Customers are looking for choice in how they receive communication from their pension provider. Our recent email and text pilot with our group pensions customers proved highly successful, so making annual pension statements available online is a logical progression. I hope the incentive of planting a tree for the first 10,000 customers choosing this new method will encourage as many people as possible to change to the new service."

The online statement service has been developed using the Document Centre, technology which allows Standard Life to communicate with their customers using online services. The Document Centre is effectively a secure inbox located within the planholder's online account and allows the provider to send customers PDF versions of annual statements.

Morrison concluded: "The creation of the Document Centre keeps us at the front of the pack and could ultimately lead to us communicating with our customers solely through electronic medium in the future."