Kiwibank's refusal to support Windows Phone

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › Kiwibank's refusal to support Windows Phone

grant_k

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#179350 5-Sep-2015 07:11

I'm probably banging my head against a brick wall, but here goes anyway...

For the past month or so I've been trying to get a problem resolved with Kiwibank's mobile banking website. They refuse to provide an app for WP so the mobile banking website is all there is. About all it can reliably do is display balances. Viewing transactions is hit and miss, and making payments never works unless using WiFi.

Here is a message I got from their online support:

Hi Grant,

We did have some issues with our credit cards not showing up on internet banking last week but haven’t had any problems with credit cards showing online since, or even accounts for that matter. I can’t see what you see on the Kiwibank mobile website so am unable to tell what the issue is exactly. As your also using a Windows phone it seems like our banking site and that model/type of phone as some compatibility issues.

Truthfully I’m not sure how else I can assist with this, I can see you advised us of this mobile banking problem back on the 3rd of August and this has been forwarded to our development team. At this time since we don’t offer an app for the Windows phone it seems like the mobile website is your best option. With the feedback you and others have given us I hope this will be fixed in the foreseeable future but I wouldn’t be able to give you an approximate date.

Sorry I can’t be of further assistance.

Aimee and Team
Kiwibank

So I'm pretty much at an impasse. The frustrating thing is how close the mobile banking website comes to working. Sometimes it displays transactions perfectly, but often it doesn't, usually at exactly the time I'm away from home and need to verify if somebody has made a payment into our account.

The exact same mobile banking website works perfectly in all respects if used from Firefox on my home PC. I've also tried an alternative browser -- UC Browser for WP -- and that has identical problems to IE. So it seems like a fault in the underlying HTTPS protocol stack, and its interface to the Kiwibank mobile website, rather than the browser per se.

If I spend the time fiddling around on my phone and login to the main internet banking website, everything works fine. Once again, this points to a fault in the underlying HTTPS protocol stack, and its interface to the Kiwibank mobile website.

My previous Lumia 720 suffered from the same problems so it isn't the fault of the Lumia 830 I have now (currently running WP8.1). I am happy to provide screenshots by private email if it will help Kiwibank get to the bottom of this problem.

I wonder if it's possible for anyone at Microsoft NZ to have a word with Kiwibank's developers and see if they have any plans to release an app for WP, or whether they would look at fixing their mobile website. This is the one insurmountable problem I have with WP, whereas everything else has been solved by a workaround.

If it can't be fixed then I suspect I will be regretfully leaving the WP family and defecting to Android when my phone comes up for replacement.

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#1380077 5-Sep-2015 07:39

does your device support windows 10?

and cant windows 10 support the use of IOS and Android apps?

grant_k

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#1380079 5-Sep-2015 07:43

Jase2985: does your device support windows 10?

and cant windows 10 support the use of IOS and Android apps?

It's a Lumia 830 with 16GB of internal storage so I guess it will support W10 Mobile when it is released. However from what I've been reading, W10 Mobile is too flaky for me to consider using it yet. I depend on my phone and don't want to trade one problem for a raft of others.

Regarding your second point, I sure hope so! Nathan has previously mentioned that some apps will work unmodified, whereas others will need recompiling or some minor tweaks.

freitasm

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#1380080 5-Sep-2015 07:53

From what you describe the problem is the browser not adhering to some standards.

grant_k

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#1380081 5-Sep-2015 08:02

freitasm: From what you describe the problem is the browser not adhering to some standards.

Why would both UC Browser and IE be affected then?

Is there another browser for WP you would recommend? I looked at the reviews for all of them, and they seemed like junk except for UC Browser.

freitasm

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#1380083 5-Sep-2015 08:04

Because they all use IE for rendering.

toyonut

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#1380152 5-Sep-2015 10:29

These days, it is just as likely Kiwibank is coding the site for Safari and Chrome on mobile and leaving IE out in the cold. You could try Opera on Windows phone, but chances are it is using IE for rendering as well.
Time to get a supported phone or change bank if mobile banking is that important. ASB has an excellent Windows phone app for instance. I'm sure there are others too.

Try Vultr using this link and get us both some credit:

http://www.vultr.com/?ref=7033587-3B

Technofreak

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#1380156 5-Sep-2015 10:45

Grant,

Try using Opera Mini. I'm a big fan of Opera's mobile browsers. I've yet to find a better mobile browser than Opera. They don't make their full blown browser for WP but the Mini version is still pretty damn good.

http://www.opera.com/mobile/mini/windows

I'd be surprised if it doesn't work for you.

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grant_k

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#1380211 5-Sep-2015 12:03

Technofreak: Grant,

Try using Opera Mini. I'm a big fan of Opera's mobile browsers. I've yet to find a better mobile browser than Opera. They don't make their full blown browser for WP but the Mini version is still pretty damn good.

http://www.opera.com/mobile/mini/windows

I'd be surprised if it doesn't work for you.

Many thanks Technofreak, Opera Mini does the job perfectly. I've pinned the Kiwibank URL to the start page and job done.

Technofreak

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#1380218 5-Sep-2015 12:36

No problem. I'm pleased it worked for you.

No matter what browser has come installed by default I've always ended up installing Opera on all of my mobile devices.

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andrewNZ

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#1380219 5-Sep-2015 12:41

Jase2985: and cant windows 10 support the use of IOS and Android apps?

I haven't done any deep digging, but I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.

My understanding is Microsoft will provide tools to make it easy for developers to port apps to Windows 10.

BrentR

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#1381022 7-Sep-2015 11:31

andrewNZ:
Jase2985: and cant windows 10 support the use of IOS and Android apps?

I haven't done any deep digging, but I'm pretty sure this is incorrect.

My understanding is Microsoft will provide tools to make it easy for developers to port apps to Windows 10.

This is incorrect.

There will be bridging platforms that will make the job of re coding for Windows a lot easier, this is different to saying they will just run iOS and Android applications, which it WON'T.

Michaelfjs

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#1388390 16-Sep-2015 09:26

freitasm: From what you describe the problem is the browser not adhering to some standards.

Or the other way round, Kiwibanks website is not adhering to standards.

Michaelfjs

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#1388391 16-Sep-2015 09:27

I really like Westpac's mobile website. It works and looks great on my windows phone.

ubergeeknz

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#1388412 16-Sep-2015 10:03

It sounds like you have some of the data saving features on, which I understand will cause your requests to be proxied through Microsoft. That's probably where your problems are coming from when you're using mobile data, since you say it works on Wi-Fi.

BlueShift

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#1388419 16-Sep-2015 10:21

ubergeeknz: It sounds like you have some of the data saving features on, which I understand will cause your requests to be proxied through Microsoft. That's probably where your problems are coming from when you're using mobile data, since you say it works on Wi-Fi.

Sounds plausible. Check the Settings, under Data Sense. See what's set in Browser Data Savings.

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