Halifax cuts investment accounts off from the web until April 2012 A British bank is closing off web acces access to its investment accounts while it works on "a fresh new site which is more secure and easier to use". The only downside is that this process will keep Halifax Bank of Scotland busy until April 2012. So anyone with an investment account at the banking group will need to manage …
I cannot believe that Halifax Bank of Scotland is going to be without a website for so long... what jackass at that bank thought of this? Any bank that cuts off a service of theirs that is nowadays akin to not being reachable by phone surely deserves to be given a wide berth? What next? No computers or calculators, all of their bankers must now rely on abaci??
"No computers or calculators, all of their bankers must now rely on abaci??"
if that was the case, i'd prefer them to the "computer says no" gimps in most other banks. atleast then you would also be able to watch them do their sums, so they wouldn't get away with anywhere near as much theft as they do now.
also, i suspect giving a bank a wide berth in the current economic climate would be akin to sanctioning another bailout.
just my 0.5% APR of my 2p
It's Lloyds TSB, who bought them over.
In January last year I spent a couple of months working with one of their programmers. They've transferred all the HBOS systems (which have served me well for the last few years) over to the Lloyds system (which so far has approximately bugger all of the useful stuff aside from showing you your account balances).
A lot of their techies were really pissed about it- they didn't see why HBOS had to downgrade. And as a customer, neither do I!
Also, HBOS isn't going to be without a website. Online Banking will still be available. It's just a bit of it- the investment banking- that's going to be offline for a year.
It may be the case that the back-end systems at Lloyds are superior/more cost efficient thus they will cut over to the Lloyds set up across the board. This was done when NatWest and RBS merged, the RBS model was picked and everything was migrated over. This meant, for example, the NW branches which had fancy new Windows-based GUIs were suddenly suddenly working on "green screen" terminal emulators, much to their chagrin. However in the long run the integration was a commercial and corporate success and widely hailed as an exemplar in the industry.
By contrast the Lloyds TSB integration was a disaster as they tried to cherry pick the best systems from each bank, by some accounts they were never able to fully integrate them and the costs were prohibitive. So perhaps they've actually learned a lesson there. Of course going without an investor Web site for a year or more does seem like cutting off the nose to spite the face.
That would be the RBS of which I am a shareholder by benefit of my status as a UK taxpayer?
And the Natwest which my daughter has to appear in branch to do almost anything with her account as almost nothing can be done on-line?
Stripping out functionality until you reach the lowest common point only appears a success until you realise your customers are ex-customers and your "successful" system is part of the reason.
My BoS current account online service has been "upgraded" recently and will also lose all historical statements data on 18th April. It's lost a number of other features too that are apparently to be reintroduced in the coming months. They've royally screwed up across their entire online banking system, not just the investment accounts.
It seems they are moving every system across to the Lloyds equivalent. In branch procedures recently changed as well. My guess about the length of down time for the web site is that it is to ensure everyone has forgotten what went before, so that when the "new" (ie rebadged Lloyds) offering is "unveiled" everyone will acclaim it.
The greed of the managers who destroyed the rather successful Halifax Building Society should be recorded in the annals of British financial mismanagement.
The loss of historical data is indefensible and surely cannot be attributed to any kind of insurmountable technical problems. More likely it's just the same old penny-pinching and utter contempt for its customers that Lloyds brings to the banking scene.
The BoS on-line banking site that existed prior to the Lloyds intervention was a model of user friendliness and functionality which has now been reduced to a pile of unadulterated shit that looks likely to persist for a long time.
I've been banking online for just under 10 years - I cannot imagine having to go back to a situation where I couldn't manage my money that way. I don't have a branch of my bank within 20 miles - my "home branch" is nearly 90 miles away.
Although there are probably a number of people that won't use the service, I'm betting the number that do use it is higher than they are prepared to admit. Basically, HBoS is prepared to treat its customers with utter contempt.
I would suggest that anyone with an account with them might want to consider switching to bank that can offer these services.
You're right it has been "upgraded".
This is a bank where before they "merged" with HBOS used to batch up their cheques, send them via air to India where data entry clerks input them into the system, before sending the cheques back to the UK. It might be cheaper to an accountant but in terms of management it was a nightmare. Also, are bank tellers that overloaded with work that they can't enter the odd cheque (it's not a huge number) into the system directly. No, they're not. but the computer systems wouldn't have been able to cope - and no that's not a joke.
Are you sure?
Cheques have magnetic ink, so are readable by machine. As far as I am aware pretty much all other banks have cheque image systems which allow processing to be carried out at least semi electronically. Also, sending cheques to India for keying is of dubious legallity.
Oh and it's not bank tellers that process cheques, it's the people in the cheque and cash processing centres, who then hand them on (physicall and/or electronically) to the clearing houses.
Deserves everything they get. Including contemptible customer service and data loss.....
What do you think you're paying for? Service!!?
If you can't engage on the banks terms then why are you using them. Remember, you bank with them, they don't have to offer a service. The taxpayer will bail them out. If you didn't need them you wouldn't bank with them, would you?
Now **** off and get on with paying taxes you whinging gits. We are developing the future of Finance.....
The statement 'an exciting new mobile banking service' fills me with dismay on 2 levels.
Firstly the overuse of the word exciting by marketing types is doing my head in. Every new product, service, programme, application, opportunity, thing, etc is now described as 'exciting' by default as if that's the only word available and NONE of them ever are! Secondly, if anyone thinks that a financial services product or facility is likely to be 'exciting' then they really really need to get out in the sun, listen to some music and understand a little more about life.
1. BoS calls a significant part of their range of savings accounts "investment accounts", so it IS ordinary savings accounts that are being cut off for a year.
2. While not covered in the story, this same migration is affecting ALL accounts including current accounts, with features like historical statements being removed.
So all BoS customers are affected, in fact, not just some perceived elite.
I rang HBOS the day after receiving the letter. Very nice chap I spoke to said that they'd only found out the same day and were expecting a lot of complaints.
I will of course be considering moving my money elsewhere ASAP.
Mind you, this is the same bank who a few years ago could not place the decimal point correctly on their website, so that the two pence digits would be the pound column, then the tens of pence, so that a balance of £1,234.56 would appear as £1,234.45.
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HBOS are one of the few UK high-street banks that didn't have a problem when we (as overseas investors) wanted to manage our UK savings somewhere. All the rest just looked frightened at the idea of not having a UK address for an account holder.
How am I supposed to manage things now? Twunts indeed.
I don't have much luck with banks. I left Lloyds and moved to Halifax about six months before they joined into the same thing.
This change to the online banking means I will now be leaving Halifax too. Not only are they saying you won't be able to manage investments online, they're also removing access to all your old credit card statements.
I honestly don't understand how they can be so shit.
I wonder if Google Bank will be any better when it rolls out next year.
I can see it now... I'm browsing the web and I get two adverts side by side. One is pushing sports cars because I've looked at too many BMW Z4 and Lotus Exige pictures, the other is from Google Bank saying "go on, you know you want one, we've already pre-approved your loan, credit checked you, and we also know you're not currently thinking of changing job..."
Although they screw you over just as much as the next bank. Apart from that, truly global presence, and never even came close to asking for bailout money, from any government. Plus, they give you proper VISA debit cards now, rather than Maestro, which gets puzzled looks whenever you try to use it abroad. They're also rolling out 2-factor authentication systems for internet banking.
Barclays probably also not bad, but I really really would like to punch Bob Diamond*
* Note: this is not a threat. I just would like to do it, not that I ever would. Can't be too careful these days. Also, Bob, if you're reading, any jobs going?
You aren't trying to use it somewhere backwards like America are you? My French bank offered Visa Debit. Works just fine, both online and in the chip&pin reader. These days, the checkout girls don't even bother trying to see what sort of card it is, either it works in the reader or you can take your sorry ass to the cash machine...
Opened my first BoS account in 1983 as they were the first UK bank to go fully online for personal accounts (using Prestel with Nottingham Building Society!).
From the front and to the back. And now being combined with Lloyds - will customers have to endure another outage if the EU/FSA force them to sell off more branches and accounts to RBS et al.
Banking, you couldn't make it up ...
Think about it. They chose to screw the investment account holders specifically because you can't just close the account. If they had done it to the current or straight savings (any of those left?) they knew that since there is no legal problem with moving the account they would. But investment accounts are typically one to five year investments with expensive escape clauses. They knew exactly what they were doing and exactly who they are screwing.
Bring back HOBS I say (Home Office Banking System) ... which was that there 1985 Prestel based 'teletext' screen mega cool dial-up banking !
This problem, as others have said, is for only a few types of accounts. All my BofS accounts are fine although they'll 'loose' historic statements. That's cr*p.
Bigger issue for me is how many banks do NOT allow home banking apps to access their date as they do in the US. That's just such a pain.
I recall having to handle my late Uncle's probate 5 years ago. He had some Halifax accounts and to my astonishment, they didn't have proper CCLCB account numbers and sort codes but made use of the old 'passbook' number with a bodged up common a/c number. At that point I realised I was dealing with a quill pen outfit (think Gringots), still running back office systems from the 70s, and resolved NEVER to have an account there. It seems I was right.
I like the idea that when I log in it asks me to save all the paper free documents to my PC before 18th April unfortunately it doesnt HAVE a button to take me to my paper free section any more.
Fuckers.
Well, time to look elsewhere (im sure someone is offering cashback for an account transfer.)
I cannot begin to imagine the meeting that took place where some management thought it was a good idea to.
A. Make all old on-line statements unavailable, despite the fact they could _easily_ migrate these to some static state and retain an acceptable level of accessibility (even if ugly and stuck in the old format), and therefore avoid defecating on your own customers from a great height.
B. Removing a site before a shoe-in replacement is available. This is bordering on moronic. Albeit much of their stuff is just re-sold investment products. However, this is still inexplicably stupid.
Presumably their justification is solely "it saves us money to do it this way", and customers can do sod-all about it - you can play it by our terms or eff off :-).
I am with Halifax for now. How much longer is highly questionable given that their website stinks.
Thank God we saved these institutions from financial ruin during the recession. Thank God!
Finally, the beginning of the end of this www Internet fad. Knew it would never last.
Looking forward to receiving 'The Register' IT fanzine in its new photocopied format through the postbox once a month soon. Please drop me a telegram if you can no longer find my address in your Rolodex.
This is the bank which enhanced its security so that in addition to the sign-on and password you now have to enter the x, y, and zth characters of a "memorable" phrase to get in to your account - which is so memorable I can never remember it and have to have it reset every time I want to access my account. At least it keeps the usage down.
I made investments into the Halifax in October 2007 – at one point the value fell to half of what I put in and they are only just breaking even at the moment. I would have got the same amount of interest if I had put it under the bed – and without the stress of seeing it fall.
I think it may be time to ditch them and put my money somewhere else.
Seems to me that what is really going on is that Lloyds are dumbing down the HBOS systems to their level. "We bought them so they have to be transferred onto our systems and processes even if theirs are (marginally) better"
In the past, when you went into an HBOS branch to pay in cash or a cheque all they needed to do was swipe your debit card and take the cash or cheque. Then they automatically gave you a printed receipt.
Now you have to manually fill in a paying in slip (like you have always had to do in Lloyds). So that's more great progress eh?
Still, at least they still automatically give you a receipt unlike Lloyds where you have to ask for one and get funny looks for doing so. Wonder how long before HBOS adopt this part of the Lloyds model as well?
I agree with the comment above about "Gringots" but I think it applies to Lloyds even more than to HBOS.
Sorry, John, I thought you were pulling our collective plonkers with this story.
'Till I read:
http://www.halifax.co.uk/aboutonline/whats-changing/?tag=hpc_p9_pr_hea_r1
I dunno whether to weep or laugh.
It seems to have been because the number of droids sacked, to save money.
Oh, God. Thankfully, I'm not in UK anymore.
well come to the bank of Cheatum & scruw yu. ATM fee £ 2.5. Bank teller fee £ 10. fee to see a manger £ 25. Inter net baking fee £ 10 a month . Yes I see you are upset about not having access to internet banking. No I can not waiver the monthly access fee for internet banking. Yes I know it will be down for a year. Here call this number to complain. It will cost you 99p a minute to call, Don't try and call it from a cellar phone as most cell phone companies block the number . If your cellar company is silly enough to let you call us it will be $10 access fee plus $10 connection fee and a $10 termination fee. Yes these fees are in USD $ and as your bank we will be charging you £ 2.55 charge for monetary conversion fee per transaction. Each fee is considered a septate transaction . We will be charging you £5 for every £100 you with draw. £50 to close out your account. Failure to pay these fees and we will report you for position of extreme porn. Thank you and have a bad day.
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