“Back in July, I told you I would be your canary in the coal mine as I ventured into the world of online banking,” Todd Seibt writes for The Flint Journal. “I signed up with Bank One and JP Morgan Chase & Co. to move my finances into the Internet, consolidate some bank accounts, better track my spending and saving, and just make my life simpler. And that has gone fairly well, thank you. But I have run into some snags you should know about.”
Seibt writes, “Chase’s site apparently does not play well with Apple computers and Safari browser software. What that essentially meant was that I can pay only one bill at a time, following a very specific procedure that I figured out on my own. I could not punch in a bunch of payments, save it and walk away. Chase’s answer line advice? I could move back into an old PC-based browser system. Sorry – once you’ve driven a Corvette, you don’t want to go back to a Cavalier.”
Full article here.
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These banks and other short-sighted web-based businesses and services that make things difficult for their Mac-using customers need to hop aboard the cluetrain. Those who surf the Web using a Mac tend to be better educated and make more money than their Windows PC-using counterparts. Why would any company, especially a bank, want to upset their smartest and richest potential customers?
Businesses need to cater to their customers, not to the whims of myopic IT and web development types. A business leader needs to follow their gut, not the ill-conceived dictums of Bob the MCSE down in the data center. The customer is always right. Market share does not equal installed base. If you can’t understand the very basic previous two sentences and can’t realize that there are more Mac users out here than you think, then you need to go back to business school and try again. Make your websites compatible for all or we’ll take our considerable business elsewhere. And if any business that currently caters only to Windows users or doesn’t offer full feature-parity thinks that we’re just going to forgive and forget the years you ignored and ghettoized us Mac users, you’re sadly mistaken. The quicker you fix your messes, the more inclined we’ll be to patronize your products and services.
Related articles:
16-percent of computer users are unaffected by viruses, malware because they use Apple Macs – June 15, 2005
Survey shows Apple Macs owned by nearly 10 percent of US small and medium-sized businesses – February 17, 2005
More people use Apple Macs than you think; 8-12 percent of homes use Macs – March 31, 2004
10 percent of computer users use a Mac; 3 percent is Mac’s approximate quarterly market share – February 10, 2004
Syracuse Post-Standard: 3 percent is a false stat; Mac holds ’10 to 12 percent of the market for PCs – August 27, 2003
I’m from Ontario Canada … Bank of Montreal customer … I do all my banking online using my iMac G5 and Safari as my browser … never had a problem … thank goodness my bank is somewhat progressive ….
I’m just jazzed he didn’t use the stupid BMW (or god forbid beemer) analogy.
Also from Ontario Canada, use TD Canada Trust, also no problems with online banking for the last year+. Getting someone to switch to an iMac, they use ScotiaBank, also no problems with Safari.
Maybe Canadian banks are just more with the times (aside from ridiculous amounts of user fees)
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Royal Bank (of Canada) website plays nicely with Safari EXCEPT when adding/deleting payees. For that I have to use Firefox. Weird.
MDN Magic Word: “Ideas” – As in “Bill Gates has been fresh out of ideas since 1983.”
I rarely ever have any issues with Comerica Bank’s online banking service on my Mac. Chase is a horrific bank anyway, I don’t know why anybody would want to have an account with them.
Regarding the MacDailyNews Take:
BRAVO!!!
Had the same problem a couple of years ago with B of A. I let them know and they fixed it within a couple of months. Paying one bill at a time is wasteful. And resetting Safari everytime is stupid…but it’s all been fixed for a long time now….
I use JP Morgan Chase online banking with my PowerMac G4 running 10.4 and have never had problems.
Here in the U.K. i’ve never had any problems using online banking even on OS9 using IE. My advice therefor is for this guy to stick with his mac but move to the U.K.
I’m with washington mutual…. have been online for 3 years, their site works fine. I pay all my bills online each month, all at once….. no problems.
My local bank does not do well with Safari but works perfect with Camino! What’s up with that?
Here is another one that does its banking with Camino .. no idea why, but it works.
It’s not a matter of supporting Macs. It’s a matter of supporting the international standards for web data transfer.
As far as I know, Safari (with the latest version only) is the only one of the major browser to pass the acid test.
Microsoft has publicly stated they will not even try to be standards compliant with the browser shipping with Vista, and they will not fix any versions between now and then to make them compliant. I have not heard when Firefox or Opera or any other will be compliant, but it is my understanding that they will be compliant eventually — and probably before IE.
I believe we need to hammer on these companies to get them to support compliant browsers. When I’ve tried to get large institutions to specifically support Safari the response is often a flat “No.” and sometimes a “when the user base gets above 10% (or whatever arbitrary number they pick)”.
If all these sites were 100% standards compliant then this would be a non issue. The web “stardards” are not evolving as fast as they were 10 years ago. It’s time these companies realized this and rather than chase a unique implementation they should become standards compliant. (This did not make sense 10 years ago — or maybe even 5 years ago — as huge changes in functionality were coming out every year. This is no longer true.)
I love how it’s the grunt IT worker that is somehow responsible for the technical direction of the entire firm.
Yes Bob in IT determines the direction Chase is heading in with their online banking.
Sure…
Newsflash, most educated IT folks, who are actually technically savy use Macs, despite the fact they make a living supporting the idiots of the work who still use Windows.
You might want to sound educated yourself MDN when you point the finger of blame. Because right now you nameless weasels, aka MDN editors, sound as moronic as Windows users.
Hey i really liked my old cavalier, vauxhall that is, wish i hadnt sold it, ahh so sad
I’m the graphic designer/HCI specialist for a national Internet banking service provider serving over 500 community and regional banks. Our product is rigorously tested in multiple environments, including Windows with IE, Netscape, Opera and Firefox, Macintosh in Safari and Firefox, and Linux in Opera, Netscape, and Konqueror. We also test with Lynx and a few other text-only browsers to make sure that the service is as accesible as possible. When we find a compatibility problem, we fix it. Please keep in mind that not all banks have these problems, and the problems mentioned in the article are probably the result of a Windows-centric in-house system and poor customer service. Also, Safari is still not perfect – no flames please. If you have problems, try Firefox first. Most Internet banking systems support Netscape/Mozilla just fine regardless of your operating system.
Don’t know about Chase, but in most Windows oriented companies, the grunt IT guy (He might very well be the head IT guy and still have a grunt mentality) very often DOES determine the whole technological direction of a company because management usually is notknowledgeable enough about technology to speak Techogeek well enough to argue.
It is true far more often than we think.
Having said that; Safari works just great with my bank, and I am a conservative from a red state. Sorry to be destroy a stereotype for some of you.
Well, not that sorry.
“I love how it’s the grunt IT worker that is somehow responsible for the technical direction of the entire firm.
Yes Bob in IT determines the direction Chase is heading in with their online banking.
Sure…”
Why not? That’s no more ridiculous than the anonymous coder at some shady company being responsible for the technical direction of a major music producer’s entire anti-piracy effort, with even more disastrous results. I think you give global corporations too much credit.
MW together, as in “If they could only get together on the standards…”
TD Banknorth in Massachusetts:
Saweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet on Firefox.
Plenty fine on Safari.
Maybe the problem is with Safari. Ever consider that?
I use Chase on-line banking and never have had a problem either. What is this guy smoking?
CitiBank sort of works with Safari. I occasionally get an error message when trying to do something. It’s very repeatable.
I have used Firefox in all its iterations with no problems with Bank One, which is now Chase. I hope Firefox continues to work.
I too have had problems, off and on, with Safari when banking online with this account. Thus Firefox. Otherwise, I use Safari.
Whit
10.4.3, running all current updates, 1 Ghz RAM etc.
Don’t mess with
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This issue is one of the biggest obstacles to Macs becoming a threat to the windows monopoly and M$ knows this. Most lay people expect all websies to just work and when they don’t, they will blame the Mac. Trying to explain to them that it’s the websites fault rarely helps.