The Commonwealth bank is putting a lot of time and effort into dragging banking into the 21st century. Its most recent idea? A wall of Macs and iPads to offer Internet banking to customers within the branch.
Gus over at Lifehacker spent yesterday up in Brisbane checking out the bank’s shiny new Queen Street flagship store. In addition to a concierge service who directs customers to the most appropriate section of the branch, the bank has also installed a wall of about 10 iMacs running Windows, plus iPads and iPod Touches, so people can do their internet banking within the branch.
Aside from the obvious question marks around security (which I’m sure the bank has looked at closely, but would still make me wary of logging in), the most obvious question is why customers would bother travelling all the way into a branch to do their banking online when they could just do it from the comfort of their own homes or smartphones?
Sure, there’s going to be an educational element of trying to teach the non-tech savvy how to do their banking online, but is that worth have almost a dozen computers, plus half a dozen iDevices set up in a branch? What do you think?
ozdavo
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:14 PM“iMacs running Windows” lol
thernus
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 4:10 PMI use a imac27″ and a MBP running win7 for work had a choice to keep osx or put win7 on it.
screen is prefect for excel not so much the MBP though ;P
Heath
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:30 PMIt may just be the start of more ‘self service’ style areas in bank branches. I know the Uk has atm type machines that let you put money or cheques into them.
That way one or two staff will be able to help a number of customers quickly just like the self service checkouts in the supermarket.
Bout time they joined the 21st century.
woodsdog
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:39 PMFairly sure most branchs except deposits at ATM’s, I’ve done it before (bout 10yers ago, before net bank)
woodsdog
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:37 PMI like the bit where they buy Mac’s and install Windows… classic… :)
Shyam Saraswati
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:39 PMI find having the online banking machines in the branch very useful, if your already near a branch and need to move money around accounts or print a statement on your lunch break or otherwise instead of waiting 10-20 mins to talk to someone at the bank you can just do it yourself.
Sure you can just do it via a phone, but that means no printing and most of the branches seem to offer free printing from the netbank machines instead of paying them to print it out at the counter.
Jay
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 1:41 PMThey are saving buck in reducing staff, no wonder “Internet Banking” is the way, and Michael Harte will pick up another *Bonus* as will other executives. When are they going to bring the Interest rates down and stop about their *own* interests? I thought the idea of the Banks were community oriented, not screwing the community with high rates and fees.
icurafu
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 3:27 PMYou should practice your bank bashing at news.com.au. This is a tech site.
matt
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 3:18 PMmac hardware and windows OS are not actually in competition…
neither of them are laughing, Apple got all it’s money, and Microsoft got money too!
good to see all of our exorbitant bank fees are going to wasting money on expensive hardware…
better than crap CEOs i guess…
Greg
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 4:12 PMYawn. HSBC have had this at their branches for years already.
Oddie
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 8:10 PMIsn’t the point of internet banking to save you having to visit the bank? Isn’t the main reason for buying a Mac the OS?
Jay
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 7:37 AMWhoever came up with the idea of running Windows on Macs needs a headshot.
cgmasson
Friday, March 25, 2011 at 9:37 AMWindows on a Mac is great idea – I get to have a PC that links up the dominat work network & software infrastructure, as well additionally offering an OS that is more stable for my home computing. Not sure what the issue is? All in the best hardware package available.
Many customers of banks do not use Internet banking – the reasons for this will be singular and might include apathy, no home PC and discomfort with online banking; think of the in branch offering as an opportunity for some customers to avoid queues or learn about internet banking and it makes more sense.
Not everyone is as savvy with the internet as the Lifehacker audience.