Frequent Banking 365 outages continue to disrupt the weekly workflow. It’s high time we scrutinise the digital services of banks who tirelessly claim to be client-oriented. Normally, the importance of an excellent online banking platform becomes evident during the summer holiday season. But can Irish consumers truly depend on it?
From the viewpoint of the consumer, retail banking seems simple enough. Most individuals aim for easy balance checking, consistent bill management through regular payments, and the ability to make occasional payments for extra expenses. Moreover, customers desire a streamlined setup process and comprehensive support for unexpected circumstances.
Banking, understandably, faces numerous regulations to ensure customers’ confidence that their money is safely managed and accessible when needed. From the bank’s standpoint, this can get complicated. Safeguards must be implemented to secure the system and prevent potential misuse for illicit acts such as money laundering, similar to the standards applied to physical branch banking.
That being said, one clear benefit of digital banking for banks is its cost-effectiveness compared to traditional brick-and-mortar services. Banks incur expenses for recruitment, training, and staffing. Hence, the recent trend has seen a reduction in personnel and services provided in physical branches.
For banks, cash management also presents a major cost issue. The banking sector as a whole, therefore, eagerly advocates for a transition towards a largely cashless society. The rising trend in contactless payments showcases how well banks respond technologically when it aligns with their interests.
So, why does the digital banking experience often leave a lot to be desired?
A somewhat sceptical viewpoint might attribute this to the banks’ frequent declarations of client service that often fall short in practice. In bank parlance, customer service generally implies offering the best service for the least expense to the institution and its shareholders. However, considering that digital banking significantly contributes to a bank’s wider cost-cutting mission, one would assume greater effort would be invested to expand its reach.
There’s a dual issue at play here. Firstly, the considerable cost banks face when they opt for technological advancements. Secondly, many Irish online banking systems initially had such subpar designs that they attempted to mirror the in-person banking experience too accurately. To put it in simple terms, it would be beneficial for banks to start from the beginning, but this demands significant investment and an effective marketing strategy to familiarise customers with the new operation method.
Now, let’s examine the process of setting things up.
The three leading traditional banks operate in a nearly identical way. It requires reaching out to them directly or over the phone, providing specific personal details, which includes a phone number. The banks will then assign you a password to start your online banking and a PIN. Upon downloading the app, you will receive an activation code that enables you to use those details.
Following this, with the Bank of Ireland and PTSB, you should be enabled to access your online banking by using three arbitrary numbers from your six-digit PIN. On the other hand, AIB appears to necessitate the input of the entire five-digit PIN they supply.
The potential problems involve the app’s incompatibility with older mobile phones or ones without the latest operating system update. This is partly due to security matters and the banks’ convenience of avoiding support for users across a wide variety of operating systems. Different banks are compatible with different operating systems.
Additionally, for Huawei users, it’s impossible to download the app from the Huawei store if you’re with Bank of Ireland.
Furthermore, those who do not own a smartphone or tablet and utilise online banking solely on the laptop or PC at Bank of Ireland will need to request a physical security key from their bank. Essentially, this is a gadget that generates an eight-digit code required for setting up payments or transferring money.
After now being operational, each bank has a unique method of utilising the service.
For making payments
AIB seems to advocate for Bank of Ireland’s physical security key concept as it mandates a card reader for introducing any new payee, even on its smartphone app.
Regrettably, a less tech-literate customer recently reached out to us, expressing a disappointing experience at their bank branch. They had sought assistance in setting up mobile banking, however, key details were omitted by the bank staff, rendering the newly installed mobile application useless as they could not make any payment transactions.
AIB banking does permit one-time transactions up to €1,000 without a set payee on their application, a convenient feature for infrequent expenditures. However, this same limit may also apply when a payee is initially set up. This crucial information was reportedly overlooked by AIB, according to another correspondent.
The reason behind this initial limitation, which is quite typical across various banking applications, is perfectly understandable. It serves as a thoughtful security precaution to minimise potential damages if customers fall prey to fraudulent activities. It acts as a pause button, compelling customers to reflect before transferring significant amounts to an unfamiliar service provider or e-commerce platform. For instance, Bank of Ireland enforces a €2,000 limit within the first 48 hours of setting up a new payee.
All banking applications establish daily transaction caps once the preliminary period has elapsed. For Bank of Ireland, it is €20,000 a day, assuming sufficient funds, whereas, AIB and PTSB cap transfers to another account at a lower limit of €10,000 daily. PTSB is more stringent with regards to bill payment, setting a daily limit of €5,000. However, they allow a considerably higher daily limit of €25,000 for credit card bill payments.
The banking apps are progressively improving their customer verification features which is praiseworthy. These features require customers to authenticate that they initiated a specific online purchase through the banking app to strengthen security. However, since this involves entering PIN characters, it should ideally not be performed in public spaces to prevent hacking.
As for expenses tracking, it tends to be a more intricate process. Deciphering the meaning behind a sequence of letters and numbers on a statement and associating it with a particular payment is often perplexing.
These difficulties should be mitigated with online banking, which usually provides room for a message to appear for the payee, and another that will be visible on your statement.
The character limits that AIB and Bank of Ireland allot for users to delineate transactions are highly restrictive, making it challenging for both the user and the recipient to discern the nature of the transaction when reviewing records. A more generous limit, such as 30 characters, would make it simpler to decipher financial activities when examining the statement.
Bank of Ireland gives a measly 18 characters, although it does allow for a 22-character identifier to aid in recognising the payee. On the other hand, AIB’s limit is a measly 12 characters. Regarding payment references, Bank of Ireland permits 25 keystrokes to signal who the payee is and the purpose of the transaction, while AIB restricts it to a mere 18.
The exact character limit at PTSB is hard to ascertain since we were unable to find any online users of the bank, we thus had to depend on the bank’s less comprehensive data.
These scant character restrictions make it increasingly challenging to sift through online statements because of the stunted search capabilities. One would expect online banking to offer near endless options for easy searching, a given in the modern digital age. However, bank applications for some inexplicable reason neglect to include this obvious function, forcing customers to trawl through a labyrinth of cryptic numbers and letters in their statements – replicating the archaic paper statement system.
Is it possible that such limitations are deliberately in place to make it harder for one to keep track of their spending?
Finally, there’s the matter of availability. It’s common for services to be taken down for maintenance, upgrades, and updates. Though this is usually done in the dead of the night, we ought to remember that night time in Dublin is not the same as in New York. Therefore, these constant interruptions can cause unprecedented inconveniences for global users.
It’s not always feasible to connect with your lender, is it? Quite true. While they provide emergency contact numbers, for usual queries, you’re more or less limited to the customary bank operational hours. This highlights a key issue – the creation of online banking platforms by banks often merely mimics outdated conventional banking methods which were never notably consumer-friendly. They fail to fully harness the potential of the internet to ameliorate customer experience radically.
This gap paves the way for fintech companies, such as N26, Monzo and Revolut. These businesses tend to be more agile, technologically competent and customer-centric in their offerings. However, their Achilles heel becomes evident when problems arise. A case in point is Revolut, which is making considerable efforts to convert Irish customers to use it as their primary bank account, despite a dubious customer service history.
Primarily, there is no face-to-face interaction available and, more often than not, victims of scams find the bank turning a blind eye, as a case reported in Pricewatch recently revealed. On the contrary, with traditional banks, you have access to human interaction when issues occur.
Despite their admirable adaptability and technical inventiveness, fintech companies still have some distance to cover to compete effectively with banks. Whether banks seize this opportunity to enhance their online banking systems and application functionality remains an open question.