Internet Banking

[julietbus]

Hello everyone,
I work for a small consultancy firm that looks at the internet banking service offered for small businesses.
I would greatly value your opinion on their services, both good and bad points. So feel free to vent your anger at the big high charging banks, or even sing their praises :roll:
Look forward to hearing from you,
thanks
Juliet

 

[falconinternetlimited]

Generally I am happy with HSBC - First years banking FREE although I have to say I gave up on Internet banking as I forgot my login details and the process for getting back online is just a logistical minefield.

However - I would love to have access to my accounts again online so maybe I'll try and go through the pain but the helpdesk rep didn't fill me with optimism that this would happen easily as I believe that I may have forgotten to bits of vital login information - and they have only offered to reset one.

It also seems like an overly complex setup where there is no explanation of why someone has to do something. This is very contradictory to their personal banking Internet service which is a breeze.

Rupert

 

[Hayles]

Generally I am happy with HSBC - First years banking FREE although I have to say I gave up on Internet banking as I forgot my login details and the process for getting back online is just a logistical minefield.

However - I would love to have access to my accounts again online so maybe I'll try and go through the pain but the helpdesk rep didn't fill me with optimism that this would happen easily as I believe that I may have forgotten to bits of vital login information - and they have only offered to reset one.

It also seems like an overly complex setup where there is no explanation of why someone has to do something. This is very contradictory to their personal banking Internet service which is a breeze.

Rupert

Agree absolutely! I don't bother with the business side as it got far too complicated.

 

[DuaneJackson]

I have to agree with that - the set up for the internet banking side of things for HSBC is ridculous.

 

[multilingual]

We use Alliance & Leicester for our internet banking and it is a fairly straightforward set-up. I am happy with the system they provide and we have free banking forever as long as we stay within certain limits, which is fine for us.

I can pay BACS and even do international SWIFT transfers online.

No complaints with them at all.



JB

 

[Alpha]

Unlike others I use HSBC intenet banking for business and had no problems whatesoever setting it up (haveing said that I am an accountant so I suppose I should be able to do it with the minimum of fuss).

Generally speaking i find that intenet banking is an absolute must in todays environment for SME's.

 

[LindseyMHC]

I also use HSBC and find their internet banking is excellent (tho' I agree it is a real pain in the a**e when I have previously forgotten my username/password etc - however, I'm glad it is not an easy process to obtain this information!).

 

[Deleted member 3454]

I use Abbey Business and find the internet banking sraightforward and simple to use. The added bonus is that it's free banking for life within certain really generous limits.

 

[KM-Tiger]

Unlike others I use HSBC intenet banking for business..................

Me too, but remember HSBC offers 2 different online services: HSBCNet and Business Internet Banking. HSBCnet is global and BIB is UK only.

Now here the story gets interesting. We used to use Hexagon (modem dialup) from HSBC, dating back to before BIB was available. Hexagon was a cr*p piece of software, written in Southeast Asia on a bad Friday afternoon. Very user unfriendly and incomprehensible to mere mortals - I once managed to pay a considerable sum to the Inland Revenue twice by mistake! To think that HSBC used to charge money for the software, and then try to sell you a training course because it was unusable without.

Some time last year we got a letter saying Hexagon was being discontinued and we must change to HSBCNet. Did all that which was non-trivial, including installing SmartCard readers etc, only to find the new improved service was slow, cumbersome and at least as bad as Hexagon. Some examples of annoyances:-

When you authorise a transaction, you have to use your SmartCard. So you plug it in, do the necessary with your PIN, at which point it closes the authorisation window and you have to start over again.

If you try to authorise a transaction where the Value Date has expired it won't let you. Fair enough, but instead of simply editing the Value Date you have to "send the payment for repair", which involves emailing the person who originally uploaded it. Now if they are not in that day, you are stuffed and have to start again.

If you have a template, say, for monthly PL payments (in our case over 100 entries) and you add a new beneficiary at the bottom of the list, you cannot alphasort the list, it can only remain exactly as it is.

Now I had seen BIB at a friend's business, so I thought we'll change to that! Did the endless forms, set it all up, and Bingo! much better, almost user friendly! But my jubilation was short lived, and came to an abrupt end when trying to get BACS payments on BIB. The conversation with our Manager went something like this:-

"You will have to give a personal guarantee if you want a BACS facility on BIB"

"But I've already got £50K on Hexagon/HSBCNet"

"Sorry we will treat this as a fresh application, you'll have to give a guarantee"

So now we are stuck with HSBCNet. They say they might solve the template alphasort issue sometime. I've yet to get a file generated by our payroll software to upload. "Didn't we tell you you have to apply separately to get a file upload facility" was hurdle one, and now I'm in a lengthy email correspondence with "incountry_technical_support" at hsbcnet.ca, wherever that is. Ampersands are not allowed in uploaded files it seems, despite having many in our Hexagon files, eg "Mr & Mrs" at the start of an account name.

And when you can't make it work, you get a call centre in India.

 

[julietbus]

Quite a few headaches already then!
for all you HSBC people do you make much use of the batch payments facility on offer? seems to be the only bank to offer it as part of the standard internet banking service...
and if any of the banks had more online applications available would they be of use to you? and are there any other services you could think that you would like or you already have that are useful?

 

[KM-Tiger]

for all you HSBC people do you make much use of the batch payments facility on offer? seems to be the only bank to offer it as part of the standard internet banking service...

Yes, we make nearly all payments by BACS. Apart from not having to write and mail cheques, a cheque=60p in charges, BACS = 24p in charges.

But HSBC don't offer BACS as standard, see my comments about guarantees. What they offer as standard is "Bill Payments" which works differently. To initiate a Bill Payment you must have cleared funds in your account at that moment in time, or the payment will not be accepted. With BACS you do not need cleared funds, so there is a risk to the bank, which is why they are now seeking guarantees.

So if I only had the Bill Payment service I would not have been able to do what I did today: pay in a cheque from a customer, and on the same day inititate payments to suppliers. Both will clear my account on Thursday, so no problem.

If I had to wait to use the Bill Payment service my suppliers would have got funds 3 banking days later.

 

[multilingual]

Yes, we make nearly all payments by BACS. Apart from not having to write and mail cheques, a cheque=60p in charges, BACS = 24p in charges.

Alliance and Leicester BACS = 0p in charges.



JB

 

[VeryMark]

If you want to make international payments you can't beat American Express - they only charge £10, the payment is direct debited from your bank account two days later and you can manage it all online.

For UK Internet banking we use Abbey.

However, if you need friendly helpful human beings in your bank, a manager you can speak to when you need to and you don't need Internet banking, Whiteaway Laidlaw (part of GUS) are superb.

 

[DotNetWebs]

We use also use HSBC Business Internet Banking

The reason it is appears more difficult to set up than the HSBC Personal Internet Banking is that each PC that is used to access the account requires a client certificate. I am sure this requirement is for security reasons but it does make it a difficult to access your accounts from anywhere but your primary PC.

It is also a pain when you reformat you hard drive as I found out to my cost recently. If you ever have to do this make sure you know how to request and install a new client certificate PRIOR to formatting your hard drive.

Overall though we are very pleased with the service they provide.

 

[KM-Tiger]

We use also use HSBC Business Internet Banking

The reason it is appears more difficult to set up than the HSBC Personal Internet Banking is that each PC that is used to access the account requires a client certificate. I am sure this requirement is for security reasons but it does make it a difficult to access your accounts from anywhere but your primary PC.

It is also a pain when you reformat you hard drive as I found out to my cost recently. If you ever have to do this make sure you know how to request and install a new client certificate PRIOR to formatting your hard drive.

It's not that difficult to export your Digital Certificate, and you can then email it home, for instance, and use BIB there. Or you can import the Certificate into Firefox and use that for BIB instaed of IE, or vice versa. The instructions are somewhere in the BIB help pages.

But HSBC are changing this soon, we are all to get some sort of dongle device that will be truly portable.

 

[julietbus]

Hopefully their new device will help sort out a lot of the old problems.
Is there anyone out there with any of the other big 4 - LTSB, Barclays & NatWest? is all quiet from their customers, and I dont believe they offer a perfect service!

 

[weddingcrafter]

Not with one of the big 4, but use Bank of Scotland direct access account and use internet banking all the time.

No bank charges for electronic transfers or for paying in cheques (by post). But writing a cheque costs - so hardly ever do!

 

[weddingcrafter]

Not with one of the big 4, but use Bank of Scotland direct access account and use internet banking all the time.

No bank charges for electronic transfers or for paying in cheques (by post). But writing a cheque costs - so hardly ever do!

 

[bwglaw]

Personal - Been with HSBC since it was Midlands Bank! Personal Internet Banking is great! Love its login etc.

Business - was with Natwest (crap by the way!) moved to HSBC and was smooth. Internet banking is good but cannot access my account from overseas where I have been for the last 6 months! The digital certificate is a pain! I exported it but it failed to work from here! Glad to hear they have finally got it MAC-compatible

Other than the above, I highly recommend HSBC. I also was told they will put the HSBC Business Card Accounts on the Internet soon so I can monitor our credit cards.

 

[julietbus]

I have been looking at all the extra services offered and HSBC seems to be pushing ahead for small business with their delegated authority for different users. Is there anybody out there that doesn't have this and think they would use it if their bank offered it. It would mean you could allow a book-keeper or another employee to use the internet banking account without having the access to authorise payments (e.g. different access programmed by the small business account holder)

 

[bwglaw]

I have been looking at all the extra services offered and HSBC seems to be pushing ahead for small business with their delegated authority for different users. Is there anybody out there that doesn't have this and think they would use it if their bank offered it. It would mean you could allow a book-keeper or another employee to use the internet banking account without having the access to authorise payments (e.g. different access programmed by the small business account holder)

We are using the 'delegated authority' on HSBC Internet Banking and it is excellent. Our Finance Director can access to release payments according to the daily limit I have set and any payee's set up.

Jonathan