Yahoo! Hong Kong joins forces with PCCW, StanChart and Hong Kong Broadband

The collaboration to promote secure, “green” e-billing solution aimed to provide millions of customers with highly secure and efficient e-billing service.

Yahoo! Hong Kong (www.yahoo.com.hk), Hong Kong’s leading internet portal, on Thursday announced a ground-breaking partnership with top firms including PCCW, Standard Chartered Hong Kong and Hong Kong Broadband, and to launch a new Yahoo! e-billing solution leveraging Yahoo! Mail, the No.1 e-mail platform in Hong Kong. This is the first Yahoo! Mail e-billing initiative involving industry leaders from various sectors working together to promote the uptake of ”green” and secure e-billing in the local market, according to a Yahoo! report.

Hong Kong is among the world’s highest consumers of paper. And according to the Environmental Protection Department, an average of 2,016 tons of papers - which equals more than 100 10-metre-tall trees, that are about half of the total number of trees we have at Chater Garden in Central - is thrown away every day by local households and the commercial sector. What is more alarming is that this amount of paper disposal accounts for over 22% of the total municipal solid waste generated in Hong Kong every day. With the new Yahoo! Mail e-billing Service, it is expected that over 40 million pieces of paper bills, which translate into a conservation of about 4,800 trees[2], can be reduced in a year. Each year, these trees will remove around 120 tons of pollution[3] from the global atmosphere, replacing it with life-giving oxygen, and sustaining Hong Kong’s natural environment.

To further drive public awareness to this green initiative, Yahoo! Hong Kong will donate HK$1 to the WWF-Hong Kong for every customer that signs-up for this free e-billing service. The donation will be used to support the WWF-Hong Kong’s green education programme and activities jointly hosted by WWF-Hong Kong and Yahoo! Hong Kong in 2011.

“Today, we are taking a big step to help Hong Kong get more eco-friendly,” said Alfred Tsoi, Vice President and Managing Director, Yahoo! Hong Kong. “We are pleased to partner with some of the local industry leaders – PCCW, Standard Chartered Hong Kong and Hong Kong Broadband, and to put forward this meaningful initiative which is expected to provide an immediate benefit to millions of our partners’ customers. All the customers need to do is opt-in for e-billing at each of the partners’ sites following which the secured and verified e-statements will arrive in their Yahoo! Mail Inbox without delay. It’s a winwin for both parties as emails are delivered directly, postage costs are reduced alongside the hassles of missing payment deadlines, and most importantly we are supporting a more eco-friendly environment for everyone in Hong Kong. We encourage more firms to go green and adopt a secure and “green” option for their billing requirements.”

“Users today are concerned about security on-line and we are seeing an increasing number of online e-bill fraud cases, in which phishing e-bills are sent to users in an attempt to access their personal information. Yahoo! believes that users do look forward to an enhanced e-billing service which would help them better protect their personal information, and hence Yahoo! Mail comes up with Yahoo! e-billing Service,” said David McDowell, Senior Director, Product Management, Mail, Yahoo! Inc.

“Our solution gives users peace of mind by protecting them from phishing emails while significantly lowering the chance of missing e-bills by delivering legitimate ones directly to users’ Inboxes instead of other folders. It is a highly secured e-billing service that is convenient to use and easy to manage,” McDowell remarked. 

The Yahoo! e-billing Service will start effective on Thursday. Customers of PCCW, Standard Chartered Hong Kong and Hong Kong Broadband, and can sign up for this free service and instantly get their safe and verified e-bills on their Yahoo! Mail inbox.