Current Services

Signing on with the National is a complicated process. You have to go into a branch to activate your Internet Banking and obtain telephone access. Then you have to call the phone access service to change your PIN, before gaining access. We appreciate the importance of security, but compare it with Citibank where all you need is your card number and ATM PIN.

When on the National's Internet banking homepage, you then have to download a small application (PCs only, because of some Mac compatibility problems in the Java Runtime environment) before you can get started. The download took some three or four minutes at 56k, and only required clicking 'OK' to a few screens along the way. Overall, a straightforward process - so long as you do exactly as the instructions say.

After you enter your user number, a pop-up window displays a keyboard with alphanumeric keys. This is to enter your password. While this provides an additional level of security, it means that visually impaired people can't access the NAB's Internet banking. It's also a hassle.

The NAB seemed the most security conscious of all the banks. The downloaded application means that instead of the standard 128 bit encryption, NAB uses 168 bits. There is also a Digital Certificate that needs to be downloaded to your PC. The digital certificate makes it a cumbersome process to do Internet banking at another PC, effectively ruling out banking at home.

In terms of features, you can check your balances, make transfers to your other linked accounts, as well as any other accounts within the NAB, or at other Australian banks. There is a maximum of AU$5,000 per day allowed for transfers to other bank's accounts.

Regular payments, and future dated payments can be made up to 18 months in advance.

You can check your last 100 days of transactions, and export your transactions, in MS Money, Quicken, and CSV format.

You can open a term deposit, while you can see the current rates, you can't select from the presented list. Further, you don't get access to any special rates, such as for professionals.

While there is a general fees area, there are no details on the precise fees for Internet banking.

You can also give restricted or unrestricted access to others in the company, such as your accountant.

Larger organisations can use National Online Business, and National Online Corporate, both of which contain significantly more features.

Future Directions

The most significant change for the NAB is moving to a browser based service. This is likely to appear next year and will provide access for Macintosh based customers. Other functionality will be coming, but the details were not given.

Usability

The download means the interface could include more features than a standard Web page. However, this didn't mean that it was any more usable than its rivals. Although you can sort transactions according to date, this was about the extent of the enhanced usability - but it's nothing that can't be done in a standard Web page.

While you can check your recent transactions, there's no total on the screen to show the current balance - this is only available at the summary level. When checking out a transactions history, it defaults to showing the last 15 days, and figuring out how to change the date range took some time.

You get to select your various conditions in the term deposit window, but you can't see the current rates to make a more informed choice.

A couple of bugs occurred where the application became unstable. We closed the Internet banking, and then were informed to close all browser windows. It took a few goes and then it was working again.

Conclusion

A good offering, but a few problems such as the lack of Macintosh compatibility, and the unnecessary requirement for a downloaded application. High levels of security reduces some flexibility.

Rating 3 / 5.

ZDNet's e-banking special report compares the online offerings of Australia' s leading banks.

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