Online banking and Linux

[MiNoS]

Well... I was in my bank today and when I asked if online banking works with Linux the guy looked at me as if I was talking some strange language...

Anyone with similar experiences?

[mhelios]

Unfortunately it's not uncommon.. Most desk workers run that "other OS" on there machines and have no reason to even know what Linux is. I bet if you talk to one of there tech guys, he won't have the same blank expression on his face. I bet some of the bank's local servers are running linux.
Hopefully in a couple years, that same guy won't only know what linux is...he'll be running it on his machine! (We can only hope)

[moersleutel]

It seems that most Belgian/Dutch banks think the User Base is to small to bother with non-IE browser compatibility.

I use KBC's online banking - which can be made to work with Mozilla after tweaking Java setup manually - don't ask me to describe how because I haven't tried it myself.

I also use Dutch RABO's Alex online banking - the system is crippled if used with any browser other than IE. Just too much code/features of the site are geared towards IE.

I myself work for another bank in Belgium; our client base is rather small and does not include retail banking. Our online banking system is also only supported for IE users. Our IT dept. only tests for IE 6, 5 en 4.
They just can't imagine that people might use other OS / Browser combinations. I did the test once and our own site did not work with Mozilla or Opera; it does work with Konquerer but site appearance is messed up.
When I reported these problems; they just didn't care and said it was a management decision.

As long as banks won't adhere to standards like W3C, ... but insist on using those fancy features that only IE seems to render correctly - all <your favorite browser> can do is play catch-up.

The use of Linux / OS X / ... on the desktop is just to small in Belgium to make banks think the investment is worthwile.

[MiNoS]

@ moersleutel

KBC works on mozilla? Great... this means I could try it as well

Thx for the info.

[Ug]

HSBC works with Mozilla Firefox.

[foolish]

What you need to do is to contact the bank. If they don't do something to ease the use of other browsers on their webpage there must be some kind of state-office you can complain to.

Discrimination isn't allowed and forcing people to buy something expensive to use a service isn't ethical and I'm sure the banks all agree on that.

Microsoft explorer is free only if you use Windows and since you do you will have to pay for Windows to be able to use your banks online services they force you to pay to use their systems. This won't do.

Mozilla on the other hand, is free to use for everyone no matter what. Go team!

[Ug]

http://www.mozilla.org for those not in the know.

[frannack]

axabanque works with Mozilla Firefox

Of course, this won't help those of you who aren't in France, but maybe some other french guys will see it, hopefully

Franck

[Ug]

Ive never heard of it.

[DaDevil]

The same here with two local banks here in Malaysia called BCB and Public Bank.

I have accounts in both of them and while activating the internet banking stuff I asked both the banks whether the portal is non-IE compatible. Man the looks I got just for popping up this question .

One person at BCB even told me "Sir there are no other browsers available other than IE." Then I took upon myself to enlighten the poor individual on the options available on the other side but at the end to no avail. What he said was if the OS is free it is not good.

The Public Bank fellows gave me the stock response that the user base is too small to make the portal non-IE compatible but at least they knew that there are other browsers available .

[Ug]

Surely you can still access it with Mozilla Firefox?

[serpico]

My bank works fine with Firefox on Linux or OS X. I think banks will need to support more Oses in the future as soon as smartphones and other handheld devices running PalmOS and PocketPC become very popular.

This of course means sticking to internet standards and not IE standards. In turn it will give OS X and Linux users more services.

[DaDevil]

Nope Mozilla Firefox also refuses to work on these particular sites. I tried it on both the page just keeps on saying loading loading... and thats it. It does not give any error. If it gave some kind of error I could at least try to find out why it is not loading. But in this case nope.

[mhelios]

You guys might want to look into spoofing your HTTP useragent to pretend to be an MSIE 5.5 or similar client! This may do the trick. KDE's Konqueror browser can change this for all or particular sites. You'll have to search on how to do it with Mozilla etc.

[Ug]

I can't find out how to do it for Firefox...