Standard Bank Internet Banking problems

Seeing that I’m not entirely happy with the response time I’m getting on Twitter, and the fact that the website that Standard Bank lists on their Twitter profile has a broken communication page (it is broken in my browser of choice, Chrome), I’ve decided to list a few minor issues I have with my internet banking here.  I dare them to respond, and actually fix the issues, because I’m convinced I’m not the only one with these issues.

I have a supplier with an automated system on their end, which requires me to pay them a specific amount when I transact with them. Now I may have multiple transactions on a specific day, but each of these will have an unique reference number, even though each transaction will be for the same amount.

Every time I want to transact with this supplier, which is also setup as a beneficiary on my internet banking profile, I can only pay them for one transaction per day, because the internet banking system decides on my behalf that a payment for the same amount to the same beneficiary is a duplicate payment, even when I use a unique reference number for each transaction.  This is INCORRECT, and SHORTSIGHTED!

I then had the brilliant idea of trying to do scheduled payments, where I would setup a payment per day on consecutive days, so that I can make the payments and forget about them.  But here the designers/developers put up another hurdle.  You cannot change the reference on future dated payments, you have to use the reference that was used when you originally setup the beneficiary.  All I could say was WTF?

Lesson in Design

If you think your user is making a mistake on your software, prompt them by all means, but still let them override your perceived “mistake”.

I want to make multiple payments to my supplier on the same day for the same amount, because it makes both our lives easier, please let me.  As more and more companies start having automated billing, invoicing and reconciliation systems, this functionality will become more important, but at this point you are blocking progress.

3 thoughts on “Standard Bank Internet Banking problems”

  1. I think I might have caused them to do that duplicate thing, because I complained that I was charged for an airtime purchase twice, although their method of blocking the payment is a bit much, and should only be applied for airtime.

    They should rather just notify you that a similar payment has already gone through, do you want to continue…

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