The Bank of Melbourne experience is sorely lacking
Context
I’ve recently acquired a mortgage, and so had to open an account with Bank of Melbourne (a division of Westpac; and formerly known as St George). It’s been a really rough experience as compared with Commbank, who I’ve been with since I was about 17.
Funnily enough, this is actually my return to Westpac, as my first ever bank account was with them; though I’d quickly moved away — when I saw their 90s-era web banking, and discovered they didn’t offer debit cards to under-18s (which was preventing me from being able to buy apps on ye olde Android Market).
My experience with Bank of Melbourne has been anything but frictionless thus far (other than DM-ing support on Twitter which went great).
Home loan application
They took so long to approve my home loan, that I had to request an extension on the ‘conditional on finance’ date from the vendor twice. At both points, being at risk of losing the property if the vendor declined. Throughout that stressful waiting period, my mortgage broker was unable to obtain much in the way of status updates from Bank of Melbourne.
I was originally applying for the home loan with below the 20% deposit threshold, necessitating ~$9k of Lender’s Mortgage Insurance being added to the loan. Eventually, BoM made an aparrently very unusual demand (according to my broker) to see the receipts of me paying rent for my current place. It makes no sense why they needed to see this, given that will no longer be an expense once I move. Gathering this would have been awkward anyway, as a relative is actually still the one on the lease for the apartment I’m in — I give them the rent, and they pay it to the landlord.
Opening an account
Rona
Once the mortgage was approved (a word of warning: ‘conditional approval’ is not the same as actual approval), the bank arranged an appointment for me to set up an account physically at my local branch. Surely during COVID-19, such a visit was completely unnecessary. Back in the day, I was able to sign up for Commbank completely online; and BoM had already verified my identity digitally, so it wasn’t that.
Otherwise, other than as listed below, I have thankfully been able to complete the entire process of buying this house without leaving home:
- Initially inspecting the house
- Visiting the police station to get a certified digital copy of my driver’s license
- Filing the land title transfer documentation at Australia Post
- Final inspection
Confusing promo
I was advised of a promotion to receive $40 for free if I deposited $500 when opening the account. But for some stupid reason, it couldn’t simply be a bank transfer; I had to physically deposit cash. So again, during a pandemic, I reluctantly had to walk up the street to Commbank to touch (!) the ATM and then take on the risk of walking back while carrying a large amount of cash. And it turns out they’ll only pay this 50 days later! I haven’t heard any updates about it, so who know’s if that’s going to happen.
Update (2022–12–30): I was never given the $40. I enquired about this during a call about something else yesterday, and was told that there was a certain number of card transactions I needed to have made to be eligible. I was not told about this 😒 And for them to be able to look that far back in time, I’d have to go to a branch. Handily, the only branch I knew about had been closed down
Online banking
Weak password & pointless Security Number
It took me a long time to generate a web/mobile banking password that was weak enough to be acccepted!
At least that’s better than ING, where your entire account can only be protected with just a four-digit numeric PIN! In the years since I complained to ING about that, they have done absolutely nothing to address it. Locking an account after a certain number of incorrect login attempts is not a solution — that just replaces a weak password brute forcing vulnerability with a Denial of Service vulnerability!
Using BoM web/mobile banking requires a ‘Security PIN’ in addition to a password. This hardly adds much in the way of security — they should just support a longer, more complex, password!
The Security Number is sent to you initially by SMS, which for every other service I’ve ever used, has only been a temporary token used to verify your phone number. Sure, they make you change the Security Number during signup, but I was initially very confused to be prompted with three fields at login (Customer number, Security Number, and Password). With the Commbank app, the pin is simply a quick way to relogin to avoid having to type out your customer number and password again, so that’s what I was expecting here too (and that it be called a pin).
No fingerprint login
The Bank of Melbourne app does not offer me fingerprint login, or in fact any form of quick login, which aparrently are features that do exist. I contacted support about this and was told some features are unavailable on jailbroken/rooted devices.
This prejudice against rooting is ridiculous. If it’s a security concern, I would strongly argue that those who root are in fact more knowledgeable and careful about security than those who don’t — or if they just showed a one-time warning to rooted users, that’d be plenty. I’d say I’m qualified to speak on this, as an experienced software developer who ran the Swinburne Cyber Security Club back at uni.
The support person I spoke to submitted a complaint for the fingerprint/root issue on my behalf. I also said that I’m more than happy to speak with the developers.
I submitted very similar feedback to Commbank in around 2012, and they have fully supported rooted devices ever since. In fact, when I called Commbank, I was able to be put through to one of their devs, which was awesome!
Anyway, at least Bitwarden can fill in my customer number and password in the app, so just tapping through to do that then entering the Security Number isn’t too big a deal.
Unreliable
Mobile banking (probably web too) was down for a day recently. Thankfully, I don’t use Bank of Melbourne for my everyday banking, so it didn’t affect me too much.
Web banking doesn’t support Bitwarden
And finally (my last complaint for now, anyway), web banking doesn’t work when the credentials have been filled in by Bitwarden. I am writing another post detailing that, because the bug was quite interesting.
I’m yet to actually use BoM webbanking, so given the track record here, I’m sure I’ll have more feedback about that!
Update (2022–12–30): I just wrote a new post about this and how I created a fix! 🛠
Conclusion
Everyday banking alternatives
Given the shocking user experience, I would strongly recommend against doing your everyday banking with Bank of Melbourne.
Commbank is lightyears ahead in that regard. From my experience of a relatively limited number of different banks, I’d recommend Commbank for everyday banking (as long as you have a paycheck coming in; otherwise there’s a $6 monthly account fee, if I recall correctly).
I have been quite interested in the innovative Up Bank, but it still has a complete lack of web interface (mobile app only). I want to do my banking on a computer, thanks — a proper device, where I can have multiple windows open at once, type comfortably, and not feel claustrophobic from a lack of screen realestate. But if that doesn’t matter to you, I’d definitely give them a go.
Update (2022–12–30): I gave up on waiting for a web UI and signed up a couple of months ago. It’s pretty fantastic — I was blown away by how many handy features the app has! I’m able to use it on my computer via an Android emulator, Genymotion; whilst it’s clunky to have to use the app like that, it is serviceable. One upside of that (hah), is that it doesn’t time out my session when I leave Genymotion minimised with the app open 😛
Home loan
My mortgage broker from Aussie doesn’t have relationships with every bank, so I also enquired directly with:
- ME Bank, who unbelievably took a couple of months to get back to me about my initial inquiry
- Bendigo Bank, who couldn’t offer me as large of a loan
- Bank Australia, who had aparrently reached their yearly limit of applications for a non-big-four bank (WTF, how is something so monopolistic a thing?!)
At the end of the day, Bank of Melbourne did provide me the best deal for my home loan, so they’ve got at least that going for them!
If you’ve read all the way to end, contratulations, you have survived my rant. Cheers🍻
