BNZ announces that their banking site is being refreshed. This brick wall advertisement appeared after logging in with my online banking number, password and that stupid netguard card:
Problem is that after a little pause I got this:
Which meant restarting Safari, re-entering my login and password and re-entering in some numbers from the stupid netguard card.
I got those numbers wrong:
So my simple login faced a brick wall advertsiement of dubious merit, crashing of my browser, typing my login and password two times and looking up and typing 3 numbers from the stupid netguard card grid three separate times.
It shouldn’t be that hard. The brick wall advertisement is not helping – rather than telling us about the refresh – just do it already. Meanwhile I really hope that the refresh is more than a few colour changes and some rounded corners.
Lance Wiggs 
All I can say is switch to Kiwi Bank. Although to be fair they also put up an annoying nag screen before they upgraded. I can see why they do it – People won’t get surprised when they do upgrade and think that it is a phishing site but the least they could do is have a “don’t show me this message again” prompt.
LikeLike
would you recommend Kiwibank for business banking as well Glen?
LikeLike
don’t you like those netguard cards or something ;)
LikeLike
must. not. feed. troll……
maybe you could introduce them for Powership Ari?
LikeLike
> would you recommend Kiwibank for business banking as well Glen?
That depends on what you need for business banking. I set up an account in under 10 minutes on the phone for my latest business account and it automatically got linked to my existing login so I can access the accounts without having to remember several logins. Simple and fast.
In terms of features what do you need? They seem to do really good international money stuff right online (no need to visit a branch). I’m not sure how well they would do when you actually need to speak with someone regarding funding.
LikeLike
Yesterday you tweeted “It’s small niche we all live in”. (http://twitter.com/lancewiggs/status/3239102891)
I’m not a huge fan of those splash screens either, but I think your tweet sums up why BNZ feels they’re still necessary: that there are a large number of people who would be totally upset if things suddenly changed without warning.
Weird that you got that Safari error, not sure what’s going on there. Hasn’t done that for me.
Full disclosure:
* BNZ is one of my clients at DNA
* I have a BNZ credit card
* I have personal and business accounts at Kiwibank
* I like many things about Kiwibank, but I’m thinking of switching my business accounts to another bank because I don’t like their business banking service
LikeLike
@Hayden
“* I like many things about Kiwibank, but I’m thinking of switching my business accounts to another bank because I don’t like their business banking service”
I’m interested to find out why they are no good for business. I am thinking of moving some other accounts there but I’m not sure what are the downsides. I’m with Nationla Bank at the moment for business and basically I hate their internet banking which is the prime reason to switch – My business needs are pretty simple.
LikeLike
If your needs are simple – i.e. you only need a transaction account, and rarely if ever need to meet/talk to anyone, then Kiwibank are great.
What I haven’t enjoyed is that their business specialists (who are not at every branch) are only available between 8.30am and 5.00pm, and call centre has similarly unhelpful call times.
And their personal/retail people are not allowed to do anything re: business banking, including such trivial things as opening a Online Call account. So on a Saturday morning when I finally had time to head town to a Post shop/branch, I was told to come back on Monday – or call the call centre during ‘business’ hours.
And don’t get me started about things like Temporary Overdrafts . .
LikeLike
Threadjack in progress…
“I’m with Nationla Bank at the moment for business and basically I hate their internet banking which is the prime reason to switch”
Curious why you hate their online so much? I’ve never been with anyone else so dying to know what I’m missing :-)
Re: the actual post…
I’d like to know opinions on How to launch the (near) perfect upgrade. Seems a few have gone awry in NZ over the last while. Or do people just hate change regardless?
LikeLike
A good example of an upgrade was Trade Me’s latest. They soft launched a preview site which ran in parallel, tweaked it hard in response to comments and eased it out the door when it felt right. Even better is to make constant (daily) minor and not so minor changes – which Trade Me also does. Banking websites are notorious for not doing this, which means every few years they do a big bang, which is expensive, slow and introduces major change to the customers.
LikeLike
@Lance – I agree, that’s a good example. Unfortunately, BNZ – and every other bank in NZ – is still a bank, not an internet business. Until this changes (and boy can I think of some interesting new business models), TradeMe will continue to do things one way, and banks will continue to do things another.
LikeLike