Standard bank internet banking offline again?

[mosescapetown]

I usually use
https://www9.encrypt.standardbank.co...nternetBanking
If it hangs I replace the 9 with a random number and it works again.

Can load shedding make my Telkom line fail? Once power is gone it lasts a little while longer and then goes dead. I suspect the exchange nearby is on same load shedding zone as I am and their UPS/generator just allows all to wind down and then goes offline. Can that be?

Same for cell reception which is normally fine, but last week I had intermittent NO NETWORK errors. Autopage said all is fine from their side (<MTN line). I think that was during load shedding too. Is that possible e.g. if the nearest tower is going down due to load shedding?

Yes the Telkom line can fail if the Batteries in the Telkom Switch runs down but in most cases the batteries /generator do last. What does not last is if your area is Boosted/supplied through a repeater or similar signal enhancer.. their batteries do not last long. OR it could be that your router is dying so you loosing the net part of the line. Depends on your situation.

The same rules apply for cell phones. Most Base stations have 12 hour backup but not repeaters and boosters...

[Houses4Rent]

Thanks, so if I need to call people I call right after the power went so I have better chances that all still runs on batteries.

[Phil Cooper]

One thing about Standard Bank is their consistency...

A few months ago, went into Internet Banking to find my accounts were all frozen. The FICA has "expired".

They don't SMS or email you to ask / warn in advance. You are just locked out of all frozen accounts.

Went on hellopeter - "You should have got an SMS or email - sorry - will make sure it does not happen again...."


Went into BUSINESS accounts this morning.

All frozen.

Guess why? You got it, had to be re- FICA'd.

Been same place 16 years, same bank 45 years. NOTHING changed....

"OH? Strange - you should have got an SMS - it looks like nothing was sent (You are telling me)?

They are Standard in theit total inefficienly and consistency in providing BAD service.

SORRY - None-service....

[BusFact]

Eish Phil. I feel for you. I'm lucky in that I did get notifications. The only challenge was that initially they didn't say which account, and I'm involved with roughly a dozen Standard accounts with a variety of entities and branches. So I pretty much had to sit back and wait until the erroneous account was frozen.

[Phil Cooper]

Yeah.

Got standard "Dear Customer" email in respnse to the hellopeter complaint.

Basically said give them a week while they review it.....

Yes. Sure.

[BusFact]

Its odd. The banks hate that stupid FICA legislation as much as we do. Its cumbersome, confusing, inconsistent and has more holes in it than a sieve.

One would expect them to have some sympathy and ensure the process was as pain free as possible. Nope, instead they make it as daunting as a visit to your local municipality office.

Our place of residence should have to be proved once every couple of years. Not by each bank and financial institution. Once by a central organisation, that all financial institutions have access to. Then the banks only have to verify who we are which should be done by biometrics in seconds, every few years for each institution.

Why they insist on a truck load of papers that are easily editable, I have no idea.

[Justloadit]

Why they insist on a truck load of papers that are easily editable, I have no idea.

Its the law not by the banks but by the government. Std Bank was recently fined for something like R105M for poor record keeping, so not surprised by the constant harassment for residence proof.

[BusFact]

Yeah, I get that which is why I said they hate this stupid piece of legislation as much as we do.

My point is that they could make it much simpler for themselves and us by lobbying Government (or getting together and doing it themselves) to make the proof of residence portion done by a single organisation and kept in a single data base. This organisation can focus on keeping residence info updated and have a standardisation of policy. (This is a particular bug bear for me as I don't own property, which means that every single bank has a different requirement for me to Fica and in fact these rules differ between branches and sometimes even between employees, not to mention from year to year).

Financial organisations can then access this database to verify residential addresses. All they have to do is verify who I am - much simpler. Already they access the Home Affairs database for some reason or other so the technology and infrastructure is there.

So now, when accounts get frozen because of a fica issue, they can become active again as soon as you get to the enquiries desk at your local branch. Every time you pop into your bank to collect a credit card or make some enquiry they can verify who you are by ID book or biometrics. This should then reset the FICA clock so to speak and you'd only have to make a special trip to the branch if you hadn't stepped into a branch at all in the last 3 years (or whatever their latest time span is).

This legislation is to pacify the international first world community. For us in SA we can really only pay lip service to it and so it is largely a waste of time and an inconvenience. How on earth do they expect to reliably verify addresses of millions of people who have no formal residence? Why complicate what could be done so much simpler?

I must stop writing about fica. My blood pressure is rising ...

[Phil Cooper]

I see internet banking is down again?

[BusFact]

Was ok for me at about 3pm, but now I check and yip, I can't get through.