St George Bank
Service: St George Bank
Technology: Browser-based application. Protection offering 128-bit encryption and digital security certificates issued by VeriSign. Supported Browsers include Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 5.x and above, and Netscape version 4.74 to Netscape 6.2. Accessible through Firewall and Proxy Servers.
Web site is both Mac and PC (Windows) compatible. Full details of supported browsers and operating systems are available on the Web site.
Balances/transaction updates: Balances are updated immediately (real time). Transaction details are generally viewable immediately, however outside core hours there can be some delay in making these details available to view.
Average downtime for 2002: Internet Banking availability has averaged 97.95 percent over the last 12 months. This excludes scheduled downtime, which accounts for a further 0.17 percent.
Average transaction time: The average time taken between logging in and logging out is 8.05 minutes. During this time, the average customer performs 3.8 transactions.
Account integration: A number of different views are available to the customer, including ones which give summary information for all customer accounts on one screen.
Consumer services:
- Check balances and interest
- View transaction history for cheque, savings, credit card, personal loan, home loan, and term deposit accounts
- Access BPay services
- Create internal and third party funds transfers
- Schedule payments to occur on a "one-off" or regular basis to third-party payees and billers
- Edit third-party payee accounts (set-up online)
- Delete third-party payee accounts (set-up online)
- Redraw excess credit card and home loan repayments
- Edit or delete periodical payments that were created in branch
- Create group account payments
- Pay full credit card balance (including government and interest charge)
- Open selected accounts
- Request bank cheques, order a statement or cheque copy, stop cheque payment
- Create telegraphic transfers
- Download data to Financial Software (eg Quicken)
- Edit contact/personal details held by St George, icons and colours customisation
- News feature
- E-mail and telephone support
- FAQ's for fast help and online demonstration facility.
Company services:
- Pay creditors, employees or others by transferring funds to any bank account in Australia
- Dual authorisation of transactions. Arrange for authorised people to have transaction or view access to accounts, check balances, interest earned and view and print statements for accounts
- View and print an electronic Consolidated Balance Report for a selected date for all your Business Banking Online accounts
- Export transaction history to compatible financial management packages
- Schedule payments
- Transfer funds between St George business accounts and credit cards
- Bpay services
- Search and check BSBs and display associated branch information
- Search for a cheque number and enquire as to its status
- View and print a list of those users that have accessed the system, imported, created, authorised or submitted payments
- Access options for view, create and authorise security levels
- Options to create or import files with up to 10,000 records
- Company controlled parameters for "Company" and "User" dollar value authorisation levels
- Also, payment templates, order bank cheques, real time payments to other financial institutions (RTGS), view and transact on foreign currency accounts, and system audit logs.
Extras: Personal loans applications, home and business loan applications, credit card applications, calculators for foreign exchange, home loans, personal loans, investments, insurance and margin lending, quotation for home and contents, car, travel, loan, and mortgage protection, information on securities, structured investment, venture capital and capital markets, on-line trading via quicktrade.
Unfortunately, the reviews only give the features of the banking sites. I have an HSBC, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and UK based First Direct bank account.
I can say for a fact that the HSBC online banking facility is very poor in comparison to the others with possibly the worst most cryptic transaction list of all the institutions I know of! Looking at the transaction list is totally cryptic and users have to click on every transaction to see what it is - even an ATM withdrawal!!! Not only that but HSBC is extremely slow. However, their online savings account is excellent and offers me the most attractive interest rates.
My favourite is Commonwealth Bank Netbank for it's simplicity and speed. ANZ is also good but has far more clutter on the screen.