I passed by Standard Chartered Bank in Ortigas last week to know more about their online banking service. While I don't have a bank account with SCB, I do have a credit card with them. And they allow creation of an online account using just your credit card (although, of course, the available features are very limited).
Unlike the other online banking enrollment systems I've encountered, SCB is the only that that relies on SMS as a form of confirmation. During the enrollment, you will be prompted for your mobile phone and it will send some registration code there. Upon receipt of the SMS containing the code, you can proceed with the activation.
Now, I would normally say that's an ingenious way of confirming one's identity. The only problem is the SMS delivery system seem to be very unreliable (or perhaps their SMS gateway is heavily clogged). But from the time I made the request until the time I actually received the SMS, it took more than an hour -- so much so that the time alloted for me to enter the code to continue with my activation has already expired.
I had to manually call their call center for assistance. It was a bit of a pain. And it seems that this mobile confirmation system is also implemented with the regular banking functions like authorizing funds transfer. Again, I laud them for this extra confirmation process, but if its that unreliable, it will just end up being more of a bane than a boon.
No comments:
Post a Comment