I recently compared a statement sent to me by a bank and one that a colleague had made in an editor, purely for experimentation. Visually, they were almost identical, but the real one had small service codes, like SWIFT, and at the bottom was the date of generation with the system's signature. But the template was more “sterile”, without these small details. I wonder how important such elements are in practice? Who has encountered checks? What is the first thing that catches your eye?

I had to put together a portfolio of documents for my visa, and part of them had to include a bank statement. Getting the original in English with the right format was an epic. I decided not to waste time and did everything through fake bank statment, choosing a template for a British bank. The system allowed me to customize everything from the logo to transactions, including automatic dates. It looked so convincing that I forgot a couple of times that I was not from a bank. The main thing was to keep the structure: account number, date of opening, balances by day, and not to overload it with details.

Statements, of course, can be faked according to a template even perfectly, but a real one always has “character” - irregularities in formatting, random amounts, real descriptions of transfers. I tried to make a similar one by hand - and realized how difficult it is to imitate organic “liveliness”. It's all about the little things. Even font and indentation can give away falsenes