When will 365 online become a real online banking system, rather than a bodged mess t

Irish Steve

I think the subject pretty much sums it up.

Will BOI ever manage to produce an on line banking system that shows the correct balance on the account, and does not have the total shambles of showing some transactions twice on an on line statement.

I have just checked on line, and the information shown is WRONG.

BOI can make whatever excuses they like, 365 online is not what it says on the tin, it's a cobbled together shambles of online and batch processing that can't then sort out which transactions are the actual ones and which are the allocation of the funds to cover the real time transactions, with the result that as of this evening, the balance shown on line is understated by over E150. 

We are now in 2013, and clearly some of the software that is being used to run a supposed on line real time system came out of the ARK as being of no further use to Noah, it certainly is NOT fit for purpose, not if it can't give the customer the correct balance on the account when they log on.

Bottom line? BOI have lost the plot, and continue to provide poor service, and inaccurate information to users that are being forced more and more to use automation so that they can close more and more counters.

I could go on about the new LATM service that has no information on the lodgement slip that cross references to the statement that is subsequently received, but they've already  ducked that question and said it's an issue for a relationship manager. 

Horsefeathers, it was and is an issue for every customer that wants to reconcile their account accurately, but given that statements can't be relied on, why should we expect BOI to actually provide accurate accounts, that service is the territory of real bankers, rather than the banksters that are now running the apology for retail banking in Ireland.


I've worked with computers for over 40 years, and if I were to even suggest releasing into real time usage some of the shambles that BOI have pushed on to us, I would have been laughed out of the place and told never to come back.


A while back, it took 6 MONTHS to correct an out of date security certificate, so users were told to "ignore the warning" about an out of date certificate. Real security conscious that was.

So, specific questions that need an answer.

1. When will 365 online correctly show the balance on an account?
2. When will the LATM system have information on the lodgement receipt that will cross reference the statement, like the old lodgement book unique reference number?

3. When will BOI start talking to users about their plans, rather than just forcing out supposed enhancements that are a degrading of services that are essential?
4. When will BOI introduce real security awareness policies rather than excuses for not updating fundamentals like security certificates that expire on a known date?

Bank of Ireland: Billy

Hi Irish Steve,
 
Many thanks for posting.

We're sorry to hear you are unhappy with Bank of Ireland 365 Online.
I will try and answer your questions one by one. 
 

1. Bank of Ireland 365 Online shows the correct balance on an account. It is a live system that updates throughout the day. If a retailer has cancelled or voided a card transaction, after it has been authorised by our system, you may see a duplicate transaction for a number of days. This can also occur if you are asked to key in your card PIN a second time by a retailer.     



2. There are no immediate plans to change the information included on LATM lodgement receipts. The reference on your receipt will show the sort code of the branch that a lodgement was made in and the last four digits of the card number used to make the lodgement. It will also include an image of any cheques/drafts contained in the lodgement, which was previously not provided on the receipt.


3. As always, we take note of all customer feedback through our multiple customer channels.


4. We are not aware of issues with the security certificates on 365 Online. The security certificates are all up to date. Should you receive an error message in relation to security certificates or indeed any error messages while logging on to the website, please call Bank of Ireland Online 365 on 0818 365 365 / 00 353 1 4044000 while at your computer and a representative will offer assistance. Representative assisted hours are 8am – 12midnight Monday to Friday and 9am – 6pm Saturday, Sunday and Bank/Public Holidays.
 
Thanks again for taking the time to provide your feedback.

As mentioned above, we listen to all customer feedback and will ensure your comments are noted. 

Thanks
 

Billy 

Irish Steve

Bank of Ireland 365 Online shows the correct balance on an account. It is a live system that updates throughout the day. If a retailer has cancelled or voided a card transaction, after it has been authorised by our system, you may see a duplicate transaction for a number of days. This can also occur if you are asked to key in your card PIN a second time by a retailer.     


Have you tried looking online late in the evening? Last night, in the detailed transaction listing, there were 3 transactions that showed up as (eg) "supplier X", 46.50. with the relevant date, and 3 lines above it, on the same date "Debit card", for the same value. The card was processed ONCE, there was no voided or cancelled transaction, it is simply (and I appear to know more about your system than you do) the BATCH system has started, and has processed the transaction with the supplier name, etc, but the original "reservation" transaction that was processed in order to make sure the funds were available has not yet been removed. Whoever was responsible for that particular transaction flow design was clearly taking something very strange at the time, I cannot begin to comprehend how they could have designed a real time update that allows such a fundamental mis statement of information to be exposed to the user. I spent 20 years working with on line real time transaction processing, and I cannot begin to comprehend how such a design was ever approved by quality control or auditing, the potential for massive errors in the event of a system crash during such a hybrid update process defies imagination.

As a result of these 3 transactions that were in the middle of the BATCH processing, the balance at the top of the screen was mis stated by the value of the duplicate transactions. A very interesting comment was made by a friend of mine earlier, and I shall have to check my business account, as the private account is not charged in the same way, does the double entry mean that there are 2 lots of transaction fees. Knowing the way some of the programming is being done these days, and how desperate BOI are for any income, I'm not going to hold my breath.

Yes, by the end of the night, I am sure that the system does sort out the duplicates, and eventually the balance is correct again, but if I had printed that statement, and relied on it, I could have spent a lot of time trying to work out why the balance did not agree with my information here. At this stage, I should not have to look to see if there is another item with a different description but the same date and value before accepting that the balance on the top of the page is correct, that sort of confusion being presented to the end user is not acceptable, and should not be happening on a modern system. 

There are no immediate plans to change the information included on LATM lodgement receipts. The reference on your receipt will show the sort code of the branch that a lodgement was made in and the last four digits of the card number used to make the lodgement. It will also include an image of any cheques/drafts contained in the lodgement, which was previously not provided on the receipt.

So yes, that is a fundamental downgrade of the service that users have been used to for a very long time, if a lodgement book, or a counter credit is used, there was a unique number on the slip that ended up on the statement. Now, there is NO cross reference between the slip and the statement, so the potential for fraud within a large corporate environment and the like has been massively increased, in that there is now no clear and unambiguous audit trail to keep accountants happy, and for a limited company, that could be a very significant deal breaker, given the pressure that users are under to NOT use counter services. It should not have been a problem to put the unique reference number that is on the slip into the details that subsequently appear on the statement. it should NEVER have been allowed to get past quality control without some means of positively identifying the lodgement slip to the statement.


We are not aware of issues with the security certificates on 365 Online. The security certificates are all up to date. Should you receive an error message in relation to security certificates or indeed any error messages while logging on to the website, please call Bank of Ireland Online 365 on 0818 365 365 / 00 353 1 4044000 while at your computer and a representative will offer assistance. Representative assisted hours are 8am – 12midnight Monday to Friday and 9am – 6pm Saturday, Sunday and Bank/Public Holidays.

There was a slight confusion here, the certificate issue I mentioned actually related to the Banking on Line Business application, which in theory is supposed to be even more secure than 365 online, and I spent nearly 6 months exchanging mails with a senior member of the security section at BOI before this issue was resolved.  The reason for not updating sooner that I was given was that "many banking on line users are still on slow lines, and to update this certificate would cause significant delays to their operation". That may or may not have been true, I didn't look at the size of the file involved, but it was a very thin excuse as far as I was concerned. It will be interesting to see what happens when XP falls off support, and the attitude of BOI towards customers that are still using XP after next April.

I'm not getting at you personally here, these decisions have been taken a lot further up the food chain than our level, but I do wonder if the people that made the decisions in some of these areas actually use the systems that they are approving, I have to wonder, if they were using them on a regular basis, I cannot see how they would have approved such appallingly bad and confusing changes.

The pity is that the users that do understand these things are rarely the ones that get consulted about the changes.

Steve

Avns1s

Steve is absolutely correct on the incorrect balance being shown in the evening. Many the time I have spent ages trying to figure it out to discover that an ATM withdrawal had been debited twice. I eventually copped on to this and now know what the score is but I wonder if I was down to the last couple of hundred when the mistake is made would the 2nd card we have on the account be able to withdraw up to the CORRECT balance.

While we're on about Banking 365, I would also like to know why the 30 day notice deposit account that I setup online does not give any indication of the interest rate nor does it give the option of giving notice online? Surely this is the whole purpose on online banking, to be able to get information like the balance, interest rate, etc., and further to be able to conduct your business online without having to contact staff by telephone. TBH I am thinking of closing this account over this.

Bank of Ireland: Billy

Hi Steve and Avns1s,

If you are logged onto 365 Online, late in the evening when the system is updating account transactions, it can appear that transactions have been duplicated and the balances will sometimes not seem to be correct. This only happens for a short period of time. We appreciate that this can be frustrating and will pass your feedback on to the relevant area for further feedback/analysis.

If you have further issues with Business Online, you can contact the Business Online Helpdesk on 1890 818 265


We genuinely appreciate the time you have taken to post here and will make the departments involved are aware of your comments.


Hi Anns1s,


As you correctly mention, the 30 Day Notice Account displays balance only on Bank of Ireland 365 Online. You can give notice from your Online Service Desk inbox via the 'Ask a Question' option. Alternatively, you can call Banking 365 during office hours and speak with the Savings Team, to give notice. You can find the interest rates and T&C's of the account here

Thanks

Billy

Tow

Hi Bilyl,

1) There is no need for me to reiterate the problems with 365 while it resyncs with the BOIs main system...
2) AIB's LATM allow the user to enter a narrative which prints on the receipt and statement.
3) BOI have still not fixed the Security Certificate problem I reported here: http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057080722

Irish Steve

Tow wrote: »

Hi Bilyl,

1) There is no need for me to reiterate the problems with 365 while it resyncs with the BOIs main system...
2) AIB's LATM allow the user to enter a narrative which prints on the receipt and statement.
3) BOI have still not fixed the Security Certificate problem I reported here: http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057080722

Unreal, I've just looked at the security issue you mentioned, and the response is that instead of using a secure connection, (https) use an insecure one instead. Who's providing the security control, training and audit at BOI these days, the Russian Mafia? Looks to me like it is time to start considering a formal complaint to the regulator about the absence of attention to detail by BOI. I find it more than offensive that BOI would officially approve giving advice to customers that negates security procedures because of shortcomings within their quality control and management, and worrying that the senior management are prepared to turn a blind eye to fundamental issues of internet security. 

The AIB LATM system sounds better, but I find it unbelievable that the BOI LATM puts a transaction number on the lodgement slip, but it is not captured and then transferred to the statement narrative. The old system, which was there for a reason, had a number on each slip in the lodgement book, or had a number on the counter slip, which provided the control to ensure that no lodgements were lost or misfiled, or processed to the wrong account, or whatever, when checking the statement for audit purposes, the number was unique, and traceable, and trackable. The new LATM system has NO audit cross checks, so reconciling the account for audit purposes is now not secure, and does not have the security that was inherent in the old paper based system, again, I find it reprehensible that BOI have discarded a fundamental part of account security and auditing without any consideration of the implications for the end user, they appear to have forgotten that it is that same end user that pays for their existence, and if they continue to ignore the user, the only option left is to vote with the feet.

BOI have made it abundantly clear that they do not want customers in the branch and using the counter services, on that basis, it should have been very clear to the strategists at BOI that the automation systems that are supposed to replace counter staff and service have to have as a minimum the same or better facilities than the counter based services that they replace.

I could go on, I spent quite some time this week at a client site trying to work out where a direct debit had come from, as there was no clear indication of the originator reference number, I'm not sure yet if it was the originator or BOI that made the change, it looks like there have been SEPA changes, the result was that a regular DD no longer has the reference number that it has had for the last 2 years, it now just gave the originator name and SEPA DD. Same comment applies, I couldn't care less about SEPA narrative, or LATM on the statement, that's information that tells me nothing, what I want and expect is specific information that identifies the item in a way that allows it to then be tracked and allocated accordingly, so that the year end audit can be carried out without ambiguity.

Then, there's the fiasco of banking on line business system, which is still locked into 800 x 600 resolution windows that can't be resized or moved on the screen, and can only be used using Internet Explorer. There's no way to do a number of things that are in 365 online, and even something as simple as setting up a repetitive payment has not yet been implemented. Direct debit authorisations can't be removed, and those are only the simple bits.

No one is going to admit to this, the underlying problem will be that most of the code used for these systems is going to be legacy code that in some cases goes back to the days of the ark when mainframe computers did all the heavy processing, and the programmers that understood that code will in the majority of cases have been removed from the company by the cutbacks, as they would have been the expensive people in the IT section, having been there a long time.

Legacy programme languages are not likely to figure in the CV of the newer generations of programmers, so even fixing problems with the core systems is probably now traumatic, and developing replacements in modern languages, well, we've seen only too clearly in recent times how that goes, the skills and techniques are just not there in a way that provides a good user experience, so we get things like cash dispensers that ask for an amount, and only later "discover" that it can't give the requested sum because there's no small denomination notes left. That's ignorant system design and programming, and the same is true for things like the document printer, asking if you want a receipt, then later saying it can't be provided is not just poor programming, it shows a total lack of user interface programming skills.

It's not just banking, the same is true of many devices these days, even something as simple as a disc based TV recorder box, in a lot of cases, the menu is created by the programmers, so the first thing on the screen is the one that's used least, setting it up from new, and the most used (and probably most difficult to programme, so it was left till last) is the one that is used most, programming time shift recording, so for the end user, that means a whole load of key presses to get to the option they want, when it should have been at the top of the list.

Back to banking. I've been involved with BOI in one way or another for over 20 years, and in all that time, I can't ever recall them doing any sort of exercise where they have come out to the customers and asked "what do you want/need from on line banking"?  Perhaps it's long overdue for them to admit that they don't have all the answers, and that the customer might actually have some opinions on what is needed, so some interaction between the customers and the designers is long overdue.

Was that pink snow I saw going past my window? 

Bank of Ireland: Linda

Hi Steve,

I will address all your queries here.

The security issue is being looked into since it was brought to our attention and should be resolved in the next few days. While we are waiting for this, please use the correct url that Tara provided in her post.

To clarify the description on your statement regarding Lodgement ATM’s, you will see LATM CR 900017 1234; LATM will mean a Lodgement ATM was used, CR will mean it’s a credit into your account, 900017 will be the sort code of the branch used and 1234 will be the last four digits of the card used to make the lodgement. I have passed on your feedback regarding the narrative to our ATM department but hopefully the breakdown provided here will help when looking at your statements.

Bank of Ireland offer customers access to c.250 branches and 1,500 ATM’s nationwide. There are over 2,000 qualified financial advisors in Bank of Ireland which is a figure we are constantly growing. We have increased our self service offering which allows customers to bank at times that suit them, like external lodgement ATM’s, lobby facilities outside of normal branch hours and our online channels which we constantly look to review and develop.

With SEPA direct debits, it is up to the originator to provide a creditor Id on the file that is recognisable to the customer and we can only apply the debit as received. Some discrepancies have occurred due to companies changing DD file format as a result of SEPA. If you do not recognise any SEPA direct debit, please call your branch or Banking 365. More information on SEPA can be found here.

We are currently working on a new SEPA enhanced version of Business On Line, which will be available in January. This new version of BOL will only apply to customers with Republic of Ireland profiles (NI/GB profiles remain the same). Details of the contents/new screens/changes that will be communicated to customers in the coming weeks. These will be posted on the BOL website. In addition, there will be a range of supporting materials available to customers to assist them as they use the new SEPA related screens (including Tutorials/Demos etc).

Bank of Ireland takes all feedback from customers on board. Although, you may have not been asked personally, we do actively communicate with customers regarding their needs and take all feedback into consideration. From our social media channels, to representatives on the phone, to an advisor in a branch, we constantly listen to our staff and customers. We cannot always implement all changes suggested immediately; they can help us shape our future changes.

I hope this all makes sense and thank you again for all the feedback you have provided.

Thanks
Linda

Tow

Hi Linda,

SEPA transactions have numerous fields to aid in their identification. Do you have an ETA as to when the information in these fields will be available to end customers via 365 and BOL?

 

Irish Steve

Linda, thanks for the response, I need to comment as follows:-

The security issue is being looked into since it was brought to our attention and should be resolved in the next few days. While we are waiting for this, please use the correct url that Tara provided in her post.

My concern is that there is a culture developing of providing fixes that encourage users to use insecure procedures, and once that starts, it's very hard to stop. The other concern is that pro active responses to security issues should be very easy to implement and check, and there should be no problem at all with expiry dates, surely someone in IT has a diary, to log things like this.

To clarify the description on your statement regarding Lodgement ATM’s, you will see LATM CR 900017 1234; LATM will mean a Lodgement ATM was used, CR will mean it’s a credit into your account, 900017 will be the sort code of the branch used and 1234 will be the last four digits of the card used to make the lodgement. I have passed on your feedback regarding the narrative to our ATM department but hopefully the breakdown provided here will help when looking at your statements.

OK, let's dissect this a little. LATM is not overly helpful. It's better than nothing, but provides very little of use to the end user. On the basis that debits and credits appear in different columns, CR is irrelevant on the statement. The Branch is marginally useful, the last 4 digits of the card is meaningless unless there are multiple cards on the account, the branch sort code is also only relevant if it is then associated with the unique information that appears on the slip provided by the LATM.

What is fundamentally flawed is that if 30 lodgements are made using the same branch by the same person, the ONLY way to differentiate the lodgements when reconciling them at a later time is the date, and the value, as all 30 lodgements will have the identical narrative on the statement, despite the fact that they all have a (hopefully) unique reference number generated in branch. From an audit and security aspect, some way to identify the lodgement from statement to document needs to be continued, it's been there since the beginning of lodgement books, and for good reason. Ideally, each account should have a field in the account database record reserved for use when LATM's are used, and it should be incremented by 1 for each lodgement, so that there should be a sequence running for lodgement numbers, regardless of the location or card used to make the lodgement.

With SEPA direct debits, it is up to the originator to provide a creditor Id on the file that is recognisable to the customer and we can only apply the debit as received. Some discrepancies have occurred due to companies changing DD file format as a result of SEPA. If you do not recognise any SEPA direct debit, please call your branch or Banking 365. More information on SEPA can be found here.

We did, and they were not very helpful, and couldn't give us any more information than I'd already got on line, it was only by digging deeper into the information that is available read only in another area online I was able to identify the details, fortunately, the originator only has one DD mandate in the accounts, if it had been Electric Ireland, it would have been a very different problem. I suspect that your comment about changes from the originator due to SEPA are valid, but the bottom line for the recipient is that ANY change that is not pre notified has the potential to cause problems, and initial impressions are that SEPA is going to cause pain, simply because parts of it are happening already without any real information being available to the end user. I am old enough to remember the first big conversion, to decimal currency, and was also here in Ireland for the Euro changeover, while SEPA is different in some respects, the affect on the end users could be equally complex. This is particularly true where electronic reconciliation from downloaded data is in use, as the system reconciling may have problems with the change unless it is changed.


Bank of Ireland takes all feedback from customers on board.

I would hope they do, I would have to say that trying to get feedback into the system over a number of years has not been easy, the one good thing to come out of these recent exchanges is that the reps here on Boards do seem to be more open to users than some of the staff that are behind the scenes in some of the departments, getting to the right people has at times been very hard, although that's not just a BOI problem, many companies make it very hard for their customers to interact with the IT department, which is sometimes counter productive.

The next few months look like being "interesting", hopefully not in the worst sense of the word.

Thanks

Steve

Bank of Ireland: Linda

Hi guys,

@Tow;

SEPA will be coming available for customers over the coming months. There will be pop ups on Banking 365 and information displayed for customers when this happens.  I have included the part about BOL if you are referring to business customers.

Bank of Ireland: Linda wrote: »

We are currently working on a new SEPA enhanced version of Business On Line, which will be available in January. This new version of BOL will only apply to customers with Republic of Ireland profiles (NI/GB profiles remain the same). Details of the contents/new screens/changes that will be communicated to customers in the coming weeks. These will be posted on the BOL website. In addition, there will be a range of supporting materials available to customers to assist them as they use the new SEPA related screens (including Tutorials/Demos etc).

@Steve;

We understand your concerns and all feedback has been passed to the relevant areas; narratives on Lodgement ATM's to our ATM department, security to our IT department, etc. Again we do thank you for taking the time and we appreciate the feedback you have provided.

Thanks again
Linda

Tow

Hi Steve,
The underlying problem is that BOI don't have an IT Department. IT has been outsourced for 15 years and effects of this are now becoming visible to the end customer.  Somewhere along the line it has been forgotten that a modern bank is it's IT Systems, and without then the staff may as well just pack their bags and go home.

Irish Steve

Tow wrote: »

Hi Steve,
The underlying problem is that BOI don't have an IT Department. IT has been outsourced for 15 years and effects of this are now becoming visible to the end customer.  Somewhere along the line it has been forgotten that a modern bank is it's IT Systems, and without then the staff may as well just pack their bags and go home.

I know, I spent several years working with one of the BOI subsidiaries (Lifetime) in the late 80's, managing and running the system that was being installed on a day to day basis and I have seen how things have changed, and it's not pretty.

A substantial chunk of the legacy systems will still be running COBOL, and while it's a nice language, because of the history, and structure of the code, the first thing that will have to happen when something goes belly up now is that a committee of specialists will have to sit down and work out if it's the application or one of the supporting layers of code for things like database emulation or whatever, back when it all ran on IBM mainframes at Cabinteely, such meetings were a regular event, in order to decide which team had to debug the issue, and that was long before working out how to fix it started.

I spent several hours this afternoon reconciling 2 months of statements, and the new LATM system has lived up to my worst fears in terms of making sure things are correct. There are several issues, the first being working out which piece of paper relates to which transaction, and even if there is more than one piece of paper involved. It's become clear that I can't use the old system that I've had in place for 7 years, which relied on the counterfoil in the lodgement book, as there's no way to guarantee that I actually have the lodgement advice now, and no way to know if one is missing, due to the lack of sequence numbering. If it is missing, that's serious bad news, as I then have no way to know what made up the balance that's on the statement.

What's also become clear today is that the LATM's are not on line real time for lodgements, the owner put one in at lunchtime, and it was after 5 before it showed up online, which was interesting, and it also now explains why I got hit for a DD referral charge the other week despite lodging E1000 cash during the day, which annoyed me even more!

I have to admit to being worried that SEPA is "being worked on" for the on line systems, given that the implementation deadline is just around the corner, and it's clear from my experience and other threads in recent days that it is not going to be a seamless and painless implementation, partly because there seems to have been very little consultation again.

I am wondering if it will be necessary to look at alternative service providers in order to avoid an even bigger pain period going forward, it worries me considerably that things like the business banking system are still locked into fixed screen size of 800 x 600 and Internet Explorer, among other serious and inappropriate technical restrictions.

Who knows, we might get a nice surprise, but right now, I'm not going to hold my breath. Blessed is he who does not expect very much, for he will not be disappointed!

At least it's been an interesting discussion so far.

Cheers

Steve

eparris

Am I the only customer of BOI online who cannot get the recent transactions or statement buttons to work.  The little arrow to the left of my accounts sometimes works but not always.  I have complained before and was told there was no reason why I was having difficulty.

Bank of Ireland: Tara

Hi eparris,

Thanks for your post and welcome to boards.

The drop down arrow you mentioned will display transactions going back to your last statement. If a statement has produced, and there has been no transactions made since then, the drop down will not display any details. This may be the reason why this option does not appear to work every time for you. 


In this instance, you would need to select the Statements option from the navigation panel on the left of the screen. The statements screen will provide the option of selecting the Statement or Recent Transaction tabs to view the activity on your account.


Thanks
Tara

eparris

Bank of Ireland: Tara wrote: »

Hi eparris,

Thanks for your post and welcome to boards.

The drop down arrow you mentioned will display transactions going back to your last statement. If a statement has produced, and there has been no transactions made since then, the drop down will not display any details. This may be the reason why this option does not appear to work every time for you. 


In this instance, you would need to select the Statements option from the navigation panel on the left of the screen. The statements screen will provide the option of selecting the Statement or Recent Transaction tabs to view the activity on your account.


Thanks
Tara

Thank you Tara,
I've just logged into my account, followed your instructions - but it doesn't work!! 
eparris

Bank of Ireland: Sarah

eparris wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Tara wrote: »

Hi eparris,

Thanks for your post and welcome to boards.

The drop down arrow you mentioned will display transactions going back to your last statement. If a statement has produced, and there has been no transactions made since then, the drop down will not display any details. This may be the reason why this option does not appear to work every time for you. 


In this instance, you would need to select the Statements option from the navigation panel on the left of the screen. The statements screen will provide the option of selecting the Statement or Recent Transaction tabs to view the activity on your account.


Thanks
Tara

Thank you Tara,
I've just logged into my account, followed your instructions - but it doesn't work!! 
eparris

Hi eparris,

Thanks for your reply.

To clarify this, are you accessing Bank of Ireland 365 Online on your computer or on a phone or tablet? 

Thanks,
Sarah

nippynan

Last post on this thread is over a year old and 2015 Bank of Ireland online banking is still a shambles. Incorrect balance regularly. I never know how much I have unless I keep my own account. Thought that was one of the bank's services and all the fees they charge. Other systems show ''available balance'' along with this unreal balance - why haven't they got this feature? I log in now and it's like suprise suprise - what's my balance today? I am on a rant now as I have just logged in 5 mins ago and the same thing - INCORRECT BALANCE. 

Last month I was charged €45 in fees for transactions within 2 days. I lodged money and the same day certain visa debit transactions were processed (from days earlier)  - they claimed the lodged money hadn't entered the account till after the transactions and therefore my account was temporarily over its limit. Very strange when I was able to withdraw some of the money I lodged in an ATM! Did the ATM think it wasn't there too and say ah sure go on I'll swing ya a loan for 2 days... 
I was livid - complained in 2 branches - on the phone twice and it was very painful as I was banging my head against a brick wall, getting more stressed out while talking to a series of robots who uttered the same excuses about the balance not updating till blah blah blah and visa debit transactions coming in late (oh not their fault yet they show the transactions). The money I lodged apparently wasn't there at all for 2 days yet as I said, I withdrew some. Absolutely lame service. Machines are running the bank of Ireland now. The staff really haven't a clue what is going on and seem to be trained to give robotic broken record answers to queries.  As soon as I have the time and energy I will be switching to a bank that has an up to date online service and staff that deal with the customer on a personal basis. 

Red Alert

Unfortunately I'd have to agree with the previous poster. I'm aware that I'm one of the louder critics of 365Online but it is an absolute mess. While on a customer "engagement" call with BOI I mentioned specifically that this site was causing me to think about moving bank. I also made clear to the staff member that this forum is useless unless the reps are given a bit more latitude to engage on these issues, rather than just reciting standard answers. 

I would like to propose that the reps do an AMA with one of 365 Online's developers. That is, they come on and answer a number of pre-selected questions on the forum here, just as is done elsewhere on boards sometimes. 

I lecture computer science and BOI's shambles of a website here has unfortunately become a talking point of how not to do things. 

Bank of Ireland: Nicola

nippynan wrote: »

Last post on this thread is over a year old and 2015 Bank of Ireland online banking is still a shambles. Incorrect balance regularly. I never know how much I have unless I keep my own account. Thought that was one of the bank's services and all the fees they charge. Other systems show ''available balance'' along with this unreal balance - why haven't they got this feature? I log in now and it's like suprise suprise - what's my balance today? I am on a rant now as I have just logged in 5 mins ago and the same thing - INCORRECT BALANCE. 

Last month I was charged €45 in fees for transactions within 2 days. I lodged money and the same day certain visa debit transactions were processed (from days earlier)  - they claimed the lodged money hadn't entered the account till after the transactions and therefore my account was temporarily over its limit. Very strange when I was able to withdraw some of the money I lodged in an ATM! Did the ATM think it wasn't there too and say ah sure go on I'll swing ya a loan for 2 days... 
I was livid - complained in 2 branches - on the phone twice and it was very painful as I was banging my head against a brick wall, getting more stressed out while talking to a serious of robots who uttered the same excuses about the balance not updating till blah blah blah and visa debit transactions coming in late (oh not their fault yet they show the transactions). The money I lodged apparently wasn't there at all for 2 days yet as I said, I withdrew some. Absolutely lame service. Machines are running the bank of Ireland now. The staff really haven't a clue what is going on and seem to be trained to give robotic broken record answers to queries.  As soon as I have the time and energy I will be switching to a bank that has an up to date online service and staff that deal with the customer on a personal basis. 

Hi nippynan,

Thanks for getting in touch with us here on Boards.ie and sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the service.

We do make every effort to ensure the information we give you about balances is accurate and complete online and the balance will update throughout the day as transactions take place. I am sorry that you were dissatisfied with the service that you received.

In relation to visa debit card transactions, these may not be reflected fully in your account until the retailer has processed them in full. We do recommend that you keep track of transactions to ensure that your account remains within its agreed limit.

The cleared balance on your account is available through the 365 Online website, when you select the option to make a transfer your ‘Available funds’ indicates the cleared funds available in the account at that time.

Sorry that you are considering closing your account, if you would like to make a complaint in relation to this or any other aspect of our services, please click here.

Apologies again and please let me know if you need help with anything else. I will certainly pass on your feedback in relation to this and your suggestions for the website.

Thanks
Nicola

Bank of Ireland: Nicola

Red Alert wrote: »

Unfortunately I'd have to agree with the previous poster. I'm aware that I'm one of the louder critics of 365Online but it is an absolute mess. While on a customer "engagement" call with BOI I mentioned specifically that this site was causing me to think about moving bank. I also made clear to the staff member that this forum is useless unless the reps are given a bit more latitude to engage on these issues, rather than just reciting standard answers. 

I would like to propose that the reps do an AMA with one of 365 Online's developers. That is, they come on and answer a number of pre-selected questions on the forum here, just as is done elsewhere on boards sometimes. 

I lecture computer science and BOI's shambles of a website here has unfortunately become a talking point of how not to do things. 

Hi Red Alert,

Thanks for your post and I am sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the 365 Online service.

We are disappointed that you feel the forum here is not useful. We are here to answer any questions that you might have and to listen to your feedback. While we cannot discuss business sensitive or customer specific information we will always do our best to answer your queries as well as taking any feedback that you have and passing this on to the relevant unit.

We are currently looking into hosting AMA's here on Boards.ie and we have done so successfully in the past. So this is something we will certainly be looking at doing more of in the near future.

Thanks
Nicola

Tow

Nicole, the problem is that you have a mishmash of disjointed computer systems, which have built up over the years and minimal/failed attempts of integrating them. I believe you got a good ticking off when stress tested over this.  In any event there is no simple fix to the current difficulties.  In fact I am not sure your management sees these difficulties, they have just grown accustomed to how it is.

Red Alert, Voting your feet is the only option. I am too lazy of move my main account at the moment, but it would not take too much more to push me. But, today is the day the wife's company accounts are moving from BOI to AIB, that's 4 business accounts they have lost through incompetence.  It will be interesting to see how smoothly the switching process goes.

Tow.

Red Alert

Bank of Ireland: Nicola wrote: »

We are disappointed that you feel the forum here is not useful. We are here to answer any questions that you might have and to listen to your feedback. While we cannot discuss business sensitive or customer specific information we will always do our best to answer your queries as well as taking any feedback that you have and passing this on to the relevant unit.

Can specific examples in this regard be provided, given the large number of complaints about 365 online. At a conservative estimate, about 40% of threads are written about it, and feedback is said to be passed to the development team. It would look to me like it either isn't being passed on, or that the development team is sending it to the bin. This is not an assessment of any of the reps personally, rather I think it's a systemic issue with how BoI views both IT and customer engagement.

Bank of Ireland: Tara P

Red Alert wrote: »

Bank of Ireland: Nicola wrote: »

We are disappointed that you feel the forum here is not useful. We are here to answer any questions that you might have and to listen to your feedback. While we cannot discuss business sensitive or customer specific information we will always do our best to answer your queries as well as taking any feedback that you have and passing this on to the relevant unit.

Can specific examples in this regard be provided, given the large number of complaints about 365 online. At a conservative estimate, about 40% of threads are written about it, and feedback is said to be passed to the development team. It would look to me like it either isn't being passed on, or that the development team is sending it to the bin. This is not an assessment of any of the reps personally, rather I think it's a systemic issue with how BoI views both IT and customer engagement.

Hi Red Alert,

Thank you for contacting us here on Boards.ie.

As mentioned by Nicola we are unable to provide you with business sensitive or customer specific information.

We can assure you that all customer feedback is listened to and flagged to the relevant departments. Based on feedback we received from our customers we have made some changes, for example- e-statements are now available to view on Credit card accounts; we have increased the international daily transfer limit.

Our development team have more changes coming down the line. Keep an eye on our social channels as these changes become available.

Thanks,

Tara C

nippynan

Just an update for anyone who googled this topic and came across this thread. June 2016 and it's the same... balance still incorrect on banking 365. One day you may look and think you've x balance. Next day surprise surprise the balance is completely different and the order of your transactions has even been jumbled up - go over your limit by a euro and they apply a charge - despite the fact that they can't keep account of their clients funds. I have switched banks for my major transactions. 

Bank of Ireland: Helen

nippynan wrote: »

Just an update for anyone who googled this topic and came across this thread. June 2016 and it's the same... balance still incorrect on banking 365. One day you may look and think you've x balance. Next day surprise surprise the balance is completely different and the order of your transactions has even been jumbled up - go over your limit by a euro and they apply a charge - despite the fact that they can't keep account of their clients funds. I have switched banks for my major transactions. 

Good Morning,
 
Thank you for contacting us this morning on Boards.
 
Sorry to hear you’re unhappy with our 365 Online service. I can explain why this may occur, on Banking 365 Online the balance on the account will update throughout the day as all transactions take place, we do try to ensure all the information is accurate and updates. However if a retailer cancels or voids a Visa Debit Card transaction after it has been authorised you may see a duplicate copy of this transaction which will automatically drop off your account within 5 days.
 
Visa Debit card transactions may not be reflected fully in your account until the retailer has fully processed them.
 
We appreciate all feedback from our customer and please be assured they are forwarded on to the relevant department.
 
Have a good day and if we can help with anything else please let us know.
 
Regards
 

Helen 

nippynan

Bank of Ireland: Helen wrote: »

Good Morning,
 
Thank you for contacting us this morning on Boards.
 
Sorry to hear you’re unhappy with our 365 Online service. I can explain why this may occur, on Banking 365 Online the balance on the account will update throughout the day as all transactions take place, we do try to ensure all the information is accurate and updates. However if a retailer cancels or voids a Visa Debit Card transaction after it has been authorised you may see a duplicate copy of this transaction which will automatically drop off your account within 5 days.
 
Visa Debit card transactions may not be reflected fully in your account until the retailer has fully processed them.
 
We appreciate all feedback from our customer and please be assured they are forwarded on to the relevant department.
 
Have a good day and if we can help with anything else please let us know.
 
Regards
 

Helen 

Thanks Helen but I wasn't posting to alert Bank of Ireland. I gave up on that long ago. I am just alerting any potential customers that the service has not improved. Still run by outsourced machines and showing the incorrect balance followed by charges which are the fault of the bank for not doing what a bank should do- keep account of customer's funds. Nothing to do with cancelled or voided transactions. The balance is regularly incorrect  - in fact it is rarely correct. Despite years of complaints, looking at this thread as one example, this bank hasn't done a thing to improve the system. I'd say a huge amount of customers have been lost and rightly so for such bad service. When will the bank of Ireland learn that loyalty to customers and excellent customer service are more profitable than outsourcing the IT department? In all these years it hasn't and I don't see it happening in the near future. 

Tow

He makes a very good point Helen. 
Look at the number of questions/complaints here vs AIB's forum.  Admittedly you have a two year head start on AIB, but AIB have 10% to 15% more customers.  It does not take much to look at the average number of messages per year vs the customer ratio and come to a conclusion.