Which bank has the best online services?

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Forums › Finance and wealth management › Which bank has the best online services?

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KiwiSurfer

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#2830079 10-Dec-2021 18:59

I think I might be showing my age here, but I quite like the Kiwibank Internet Banking interface. It's quite a simple interface as it has not changed much in a long time. In fact I am certain a lot of the Internet Banking interface is original from launch. However its fast to load (clearly designed for 2000's era connections) and you can do nearly everything you need to do with minimal fuss. It is so old fashioned it works perfectly in pretty much any browser. One feature I quite like is the level of detail you get from transactions (which other banks seem to hide) -- for example for many transactions they will show the contra (i.e. other party) account. Don't think that because the UI is old fashioned that there are no modern stuff--they have successfully retrofitted many new features e.g. TXT confirmation of large transactions, new payees, and the like.

The Mobile app is much more modern and quite slick actually.

My secondary bank is ASB for a number of reasons. I agree the ASB Internet Banking redesign is...interesting. Seems to go down the path of simplifying things to the point you can only do certain things certain ways. I'm not sure I'd be happy with it as my bank bank. Funnily enough I also have authority over a few Society accounts which uses ASB Business Banking and its entirely the opposite--the UI is so complex it took me a good 10 minutes to figure how how to make a single payment the first time I did it. And even now it takes me a few minutes to figure it out what to do when I need to make another one. Really no consistency at all and always missing the mark by a long way (i.e. too simple or too complex).

I only hope when Kiwibank eventually does a refresh they use ASB as a guide of what not to do...

I was a BNZ customer for a while a few years back and I was fairly impressed with the eye candy on their platform. However to be quite honest I can do everything online with Kiwibank that I could do online with BNZ so it's more of a eye candy thing really. I wouldn't switch just because of eye candy -- for me minimising my financial expenses is more important so I'd go with a bank with cheaper rates as long as their internet baking is decent enough.

Westpac is also a honourable mention as well, their internet banking is fairly modern by NZ Banks standards -- they were going through the process of switching over to their current platform just as I joined them so I got to see both the old platform and the new one. They seemed pretty good at keeping the old platform around until they had migrated every feature across. I ended up leaving Westpac to go back to Kiwibank only because I met my now husband and back then it made more sense to stick with the one bank we both had accounts with i.e. Kiwibank.

Been a while since I've used ANZ and Co-Operative. I recall both had modern platforms but beyond that can't recall much.

(Yes I've used too many different banks. I'm now under strict orders to stick with one!)

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scuwp

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#2830082 10-Dec-2021 19:12

I actually like the new ASB app. Simplified, clean, and easy to navigate.

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#2830194 10-Dec-2021 22:19

scuwp:
I actually like the new ASB app. Simplified, clean, and easy to navigate.

I don't have an issue either, think it's slightly better than before and the 2FA etc works well. Paying TradeMe sellers' is also super slick, as is the online EFTPOS. The only semi regular transaction I do which is not present in the mobile app is the transfer of True Rewards to another account.

Looks to me like a work in progress so presumably will only get better as they move beyond the MVP.

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#2830203 11-Dec-2021 00:16

I've used most of the major banks apps at one point or another. ANZ used to be a leader but the others have caught up (and surpassed in some respects). I was very impressed with BNZ's ability to fully open all services without going into a branch or calling a contact centre (using a verified Realme).

For your everyday balances and transactions... most are fairly straight forward and functional. A number of them also allow you to open accounts and services, manage your cards / PIN's etc.
Some of the Chinese banks eg. ICBC have apps but feel a bit 'strange' (but fairly functional). When I had holdings at HSBC, they didn't have a NZ app and whilst their internet banking has become more mobile friendly... it felt like something from the 90's (but you can't beat some of their offerings).

My recommendation is to find a bank based on their pricing/fees/rates and their service. Is it difficult to engage the bank? Are they prepared to offer further discounts on loan rates? Do they have 'Smart ATMs' near you?

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ANglEAUT

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#2830253 11-Dec-2021 00:48

Like so many things, it depends on what you describe as best. I've used all of the banks listed below at one point or another & ASB is my main bank currently

ASB
- Currently transitioning over to a new UX (as per this thread). UX seems to be heavily optimised / geared for mobile devices. Big graphics & text that is concentrated in the centre of the screen, leaving lots of white space on a hi-res screen. Sometimes you do get thrown over to the old Desktop interface as they clearly have not completed all of the components yet. For transfers, the accounts are listed in name order, for payments, they are listed in account number order (FFS). This is similar to the design discussion earlier on about the back button. With the previous Desktop focused UX, you could create multiple lines for transfers / payments at the same time & click the pay / submit button once. Now, you have to step through the payments / transfer process in a VERY repetitive fashion. Searching for payees seems easier now with the find / filter as you type option. Copy / pasting account & IRD numbers is a breeze. Since COVID, opening additional bank accounts is instant. Man o man, good luck trying to find the correct interest rate that applies to your selected account type. Their internal messaging system feels antiquated, take generally 48hrs for a response & you are only notified of a response alert when logging into IB. Searching transactions is easy & fast enough & has the free flow text search. Note that there is a hard limit & you can only search the last 7 years of transactions, not a day beyond. When I joined them back in 2009/2010 I asked for better proof of payment. The mobile phone app is very easy to use, has the main functions readily available. By default, on a mobile device, new payees are saved (Ugh). On Desktop, new payees are not saved by default. 2FA options are Netcode SMS and mobile phone app notification / approval. No TOTP option. Oh yeah, if an account doesn't have any transaction activity, you don't get a monthly statement for that account (FFS). Then again, they are the only one that have a "Save the change" option. It's a digital version of throwing your loose change into a glass jar when you come home. I wish I had kids younger than 12 so I can try out their KleverKash elephant 😍. No credit cards means I basically have free personal banking. Business accounts have a $7.50 monthly charge.
- [rant] Why must it look like a page printed off the internet? Why does it show my account number & my descriptions? That is not information that the other party requires. Where is the official letterhead from ASB that this transaction occurred on their system. Even on the mobile app, pressing the share button is basically just a screenshot of the successful payment. I do not want to show the recipient my banking details. They only need to know which bank it comes from, what account it was paid into & the associated description text. How I label my transactions & from which account I pay is non of the recipients business.[/rant].
Co-operative bank
- Only used them for a short while, so did not explore the feature fully. From memory, the only bank that charged me a monthly account / membership / bank fee ($5). UI felt modern enough with smoothed / rounded elements. UI was responsive & felt logical to me. They are also the only one that have revoked my access after closing my accounts. All other banks below still allow me to log into IB even though I don't have accounts with them any more. Don't remember if they had a 2FA option for additional security.
Kiwibank
- Super fast UI because it hasn't changed since before 2013. Their website for mobile devices was a lighter version of the Desktop version & felt well designed back then. They seem to only have KeepSafe as an additional security option. Basically specify certain letters from a question & answer pair. Menu layout start off with only 4 options, but discoverability for items seemed easy. Opening additional accounts was easily done online even back then. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking. I have not used their mobile phone app recently.
Westpac
- UI fast & well suited for Desktop & mobile devices. Very functional though. 2FA security is Online Guardian (what ever that is) & security question answer pairs. As I don't have the mobile phone app loaded, I cant say if they have in app prompts. viewing transaction details & making payments seemed to flow easily from what I remember. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking.
ANZ
- UI seems more geared towards the Desktop with some of the rounder / softer elements of Co-op, BNZ & Westpac. Screen elements are easily readable. I think they updated their interface subtly about 3-4 years ago, so it feels more modern thank Kiwibank, but less so than Co-op & BNZ. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking.
BNZ
- The only bank that offer an alternative language (Te Reo) in their UI. You have the option of showing only one language, or both with your choice of the primary language. The UI feels welcoming & the feedback messages are friendly / up beat. UI also seems heavily geared for mobile devices, but adjusted for Desktop when necessary. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking. I have not used their mobile phone app recently.
- [rant] Way back in the day, they seem to somehow have cross-linked my account with somebody else. I can't remember what exactly it was, but they promised that everything was OK. When I opened a new set of accounts several years later, I had the same sense that something wasn't right on the welcome letter. Unfortunately, it seems like they are not willing / can't open a brand new profile for me. [/rant]

On a spectrum of Desktop to mobile, I would rate the banks in this order: Desktop: Kiwibank > ANZ > Westpac > Co-operative Bank > BNZ > ASB :Mobile

For all of the banks, their money tracking & categorisation option is basically a box ticking exercise. You are better to use a separate tool.

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richms

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#2830265 11-Dec-2021 07:11

SirHumphreyAppleby:

The new UI is awful. If you have your personal and business accounts linked, other than the business accounts appearing at the bottom, there is now nothing to separate the two in the account list.

I quite like the look and feel of the Heartland Digital online banking system, but as most of my daily banking is with ASB, I haven't explored it too much. The BNZ interface is mobile friendly (I'm not), but it does seem quite functional. It's great for occasional one-off payments to people as they all appear as icons down the bottom of the screen. I haven't used it for other forms of bill payment.

I have paid wrong bills because of that stupid new design. Why let me set up bill payments on separate accounts if its gonna get ignored and just list all the accounts?

Other than that, I have no issues with the redesign where it has been done, but there is still plenty of the old stuff there and the change between new and old is annoying.

I will say do not go for westpac if you care about online. They cant even activate a debit card or assign a pin without going to a branch to do it. Absurd but thats how they seem to want to roll.

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#2830266 11-Dec-2021 07:16

cokemaster:
rogercruse:

Noting the recommendartions so far, but none for KiwiBank. We find this strange as they offer the same phone and internet banking serivces as the other banks plus thay truely customer focussed.

I’ve found the opposite to be true in terms of Kiwibank. The arrogance and condescension that I came across TWO different loan instances was world class… to the point that I lost money leaving them the second time. Just because Kiwibank is a NZ based bank, doesn’t entitle them to act like douche bags.

Do they still have card processing that is trigger happy to block for their protection and cant even tell when the days begin because its using a different timezone to decide what day to put transactions into?

Noone I know with kiwibank it happy, just stuck there. They loved having their money tied up for days because they used pay at pump when other banks release it immediately.

NZpost/Kiwibank lost me over the fiasco over the loaded travel card that a friend experienced. Never before had so much screw around from a place with bad customer service.

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MikeB4

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#2830275 11-Dec-2021 08:00

Cooperative Bank online is excellent. I do wish they would hurry up with the "coming soon" Google and Apple Pay services.

KiwiSurfer

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#2830487 11-Dec-2021 18:20

ANglEAUT:

Kiwibank

They seem to only have KeepSafe as an additional security option.

Just wanted to point out that Kiwibank do SMS 2FA for certain high risk actions e.g. adding a new payee. Makes sense as a hacker would not likely want to make a payment to an existing payee but pay to a different account that they control. It means you don't need to do 2FA to check balances, transfer between accounts, pay existing payees, etc. BNZ (or at least they did last time I banked with them) required 2FA for all logins which was a pain when I just wanted to check I had enough money in the account so had to find my 2FA card or device. Maybe this is no longer the case now though?

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#2830492 11-Dec-2021 18:37

@richms, I don’t know. I cut most of my ties with Kiwibank after being scolded by multiple Kiwibank representatives (including one scolding via email!) for having the audacity to ask for discounted rates when my fixed terms came up for renewal. Apparently I was being ungrateful because they gave me special onboarding rates.

ANZ, Westpac, HSBC didn’t take exception with negotiating rates.

Never had any issues with Kiwibanks credit cards however.

With Westpac, they do carry your pin over so when you get a new card, you just need to do a pin transaction to activate it. I believe when I got my credit card application with them initially, I set my pin using the IVR.

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Handle9

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#2830524 11-Dec-2021 22:04

Anyone but TSB. They are horrible.

sJBs

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#2843477 5-Jan-2022 10:22

ANglEAUT:

Like so many things, it depends on what you describe as best. I've used all of the banks listed below at one point or another & ASB is my main bank currently

ASB

Currently transitioning over to a new UX (as per this thread). UX seems to be heavily optimised / geared for mobile devices. Big graphics & text that is concentrated in the centre of the screen, leaving lots of white space on a hi-res screen. Sometimes you do get thrown over to the old Desktop interface as they clearly have not completed all of the components yet. For transfers, the accounts are listed in name order, for payments, they are listed in account number order (FFS). This is similar to the design discussion earlier on about the back button. With the previous Desktop focused UX, you could create multiple lines for transfers / payments at the same time & click the pay / submit button once. Now, you have to step through the payments / transfer process in a VERY repetitive fashion. Searching for payees seems easier now with the find / filter as you type option. Copy / pasting account & IRD numbers is a breeze. Since COVID, opening additional bank accounts is instant. Man o man, good luck trying to find the correct interest rate that applies to your selected account type. Their internal messaging system feels antiquated, take generally 48hrs for a response & you are only notified of a response alert when logging into IB. Searching transactions is easy & fast enough & has the free flow text search. Note that there is a hard limit & you can only search the last 7 years of transactions, not a day beyond. When I joined them back in 2009/2010 I asked for better proof of payment. The mobile phone app is very easy to use, has the main functions readily available. By default, on a mobile device, new payees are saved (Ugh). On Desktop, new payees are not saved by default. 2FA options are Netcode SMS and mobile phone app notification / approval. No TOTP option. Oh yeah, if an account doesn't have any transaction activity, you don't get a monthly statement for that account (FFS). Then again, they are the only one that have a "Save the change" option. It's a digital version of throwing your loose change into a glass jar when you come home. I wish I had kids younger than 12 so I can try out their KleverKash elephant 😍. No credit cards means I basically have free personal banking. Business accounts have a $7.50 monthly charge.
[rant] Why must it look like a page printed off the internet? Why does it show my account number & my descriptions? That is not information that the other party requires. Where is the official letterhead from ASB that this transaction occurred on their system. Even on the mobile app, pressing the share button is basically just a screenshot of the successful payment. I do not want to show the recipient my banking details. They only need to know which bank it comes from, what account it was paid into & the associated description text. How I label my transactions & from which account I pay is non of the recipients business.[/rant].
Co-operative bank

Only used them for a short while, so did not explore the feature fully. From memory, the only bank that charged me a monthly account / membership / bank fee ($5). UI felt modern enough with smoothed / rounded elements. UI was responsive & felt logical to me. They are also the only one that have revoked my access after closing my accounts. All other banks below still allow me to log into IB even though I don't have accounts with them any more. Don't remember if they had a 2FA option for additional security.
Kiwibank

Super fast UI because it hasn't changed since before 2013. Their website for mobile devices was a lighter version of the Desktop version & felt well designed back then. They seem to only have KeepSafe as an additional security option. Basically specify certain letters from a question & answer pair. Menu layout start off with only 4 options, but discoverability for items seemed easy. Opening additional accounts was easily done online even back then. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking. I have not used their mobile phone app recently.
Westpac

UI fast & well suited for Desktop & mobile devices. Very functional though. 2FA security is Online Guardian (what ever that is) & security question answer pairs. As I don't have the mobile phone app loaded, I cant say if they have in app prompts. viewing transaction details & making payments seemed to flow easily from what I remember. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking.
ANZ

UI seems more geared towards the Desktop with some of the rounder / softer elements of Co-op, BNZ & Westpac. Screen elements are easily readable. I think they updated their interface subtly about 3-4 years ago, so it feels more modern thank Kiwibank, but less so than Co-op & BNZ. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking.
BNZ

The only bank that offer an alternative language (Te Reo) in their UI. You have the option of showing only one language, or both with your choice of the primary language. The UI feels welcoming & the feedback messages are friendly / up beat. UI also seems heavily geared for mobile devices, but adjusted for Desktop when necessary. No credit cards means I basically had free personal banking. I have not used their mobile phone app recently.
[rant] Way back in the day, they seem to somehow have cross-linked my account with somebody else. I can't remember what exactly it was, but they promised that everything was OK. When I opened a new set of accounts several years later, I had the same sense that something wasn't right on the welcome letter. Unfortunately, it seems like they are not willing / can't open a brand new profile for me. [/rant]
On a spectrum of Desktop to mobile, I would rate the banks in this order: Desktop: Kiwibank > ANZ > Westpac > Co-operative Bank > BNZ > ASB :Mobile

For all of the banks, their money tracking & categorisation option is basically a box ticking exercise. You are better to use a separate tool.

Excellent summary. I also had similar experiences with BNZ, Cooperatrive and ASB. Using ASB as my main bank for now.

I am surprised that the ASB doesn't offer any notifications for transactions, log-in, or create beneficiary, nor limiting the size of the transactions. You can only set notifications for reaching a particular account balance. I'm really glad to see they are finally moving away from the very insecure SMS confirmations that still seem the standard throughout NZ banking, even though most of the world deemed this insecure more than 10 years ago. Using the phone app for confirming online activity is a move in the right direction, and should really be the default.

These are my serious security concerns with ASB, and will form my checklist when bank shopping again in a year. Unfortunately, this type of information isn't readily available, and you only find it out once you joined the bank.

Some other gripes:

Also don't have credit cards, but rather revolving credit home loan, which makes security more important to me to prevent unauthorised access to my funds.

I pay $5 pm for each card (wide and I) as well as another $12 pm account fee.

Can't get statements emailed on a monthly basis? (even if the option is selected in person at the bank....)

Can't get statements on the app, but redirected to the internet banking to log in again and download manually.

Getting Proof of Payment for historical payments made, are not available on the app.

Seems like the app is not actively being developed to handle all banking functions

What I like:

App is intuitive and logically laid out, with the limited functions all working as intended.

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