Co-op catches up

A_NonnyMouse

A message upon logging in to the online banking for the co-op today informing that the available balance now includes items in transit, hurrah!

Also mention that this will follow shortly on the mobile app and is on the telephone service too.

Paul_B.

Impressive! Their poor online service is the only reason I am looking at moving my main current account elsewhere. Good to see they're making improvements. Now they need to update their phone apps to make them useful and even just sized properly for the now year odd old iPhone 5 screen.

I was sure this was supposed to have been completed a few weeks back, maybe something went wrong.

realaledrinker

Various Apps improvements are planned for 2014 as part of the 'digital catch-up'.

Personally I would have preferred the 'available balance' to have not included the overdraft facility but there you go.

Yeah the changes were applied 3 or 4 weekends ago but had to be backed out; not sure why.

Shame that the Apps don't show the correct available balance yet - not exactly helpful when you are out shopping for preseys or at the sales.

Paul_B.

I thought that must have been the case as I seen a message similar to this one after I had logged in that time.

Hopefully their digital catch up becomes a reality unlike the previous promised upgrades to the online and mobile services. As I've said before that's the only reason I'm moving my current account elsewhere. I just found it so difficult to manage my money with the primitive interface and frequent statements. I certainly haven't missed the statement every week and a half since using the account less!

The trick for me getting the most up to date balance on the go including items in transit was to text bal to their SMS number. Obviously you need to be registered for the service. The only snag for me lately is that I moved from O2 to Three and Three charge me for texting their short code where O2 included it in my text allowance.

FireWyrm

Funnily enough, I've just cleared out my old account with them prior to moving to Santander. The online banking is appalling compared to the others, the security impossible to remember and if you get it wrong, you get locked out and have to phone in to have it unlocked again and it took 3 days at least for any transaction to show up in the balance. I was sick of it. It's not like the Co-Op is my main running account, but all these things just annoyed the heck out of me. I'm gone to see what Santander are like instead. Shame, as I have most of my utilities and other things with the Co-Op, banking was the logical step.

Paul_B.

Oddly I've never had issues logging in but transactions are slow to appear and it's not great. I prefer the security that the Coop have over Santander where you enter the same 3 pieces of information each time. If the Coop improve it I would be happy going back.

I originally moved from Santander to Coop because of the poor service in 2009 and their complete lack of help when there was fraudulent use of my debit card. They eventually sorted it but it was tedious. I agree however that their online is much better than the Coops, they'd be ok without the poor service and trying to sell you everything you don't want, in my case they sign you up for it anyway and your shiny credit card will arrive in the post unwanted so they meet a sales target.

FireWyrm

Paul_B. wrote: »

.... and trying to sell you everything you don't want, in my case they sign you up for it anyway and your shiny credit card will arrive in the post unwanted so they meet a sales target.

Really? I'll look out for that and if it arrives, will be returned cut up in an envelope without a stamp. I dont like banks forming legal contracts on my behalf without informing me, it makes me testy.

pmduk

Barclays are pretty awful for that too

Paul_B.

FireWyrm wrote: »

Really? I'll look out for that and if it arrives, will be returned cut up in an envelope without a stamp. I dont like banks forming legal contracts on my behalf without informing me, it makes me testy.

That's one thing Santander are good at, up selling.

The incident I mentioned happened when their 123 stuff was new and Rory Mcilroy was newly signed up for their promotions. I was in sorting out my business's accounts and got asked about the new 123 accounts. I said very clearly I wasn't interested. The woman in branch proceeded to find out what credit limit I could get, again I said I wasn't interested. I already had a current account and credit card with Santander, a week later their 123 current account turned up followed by the 123 credit card. I complained at various levels to Santander about this. Including executive. All to meet a sales target. Why I needed 2 current accounts and a second of both I don't know.

The time with fraud it was Santander who detected it but made it very difficult to sort out. Even going into the branch they said nothing was wrong with my account. I had to call another number to find out after already waiting on hold following their automated call for a half hour. When I called the number I spoke to one person then passed to another.

In short the branches are sales machines, not customer service. For them it's all sell, sell, sell. Much more than other banks.

Wilkins

A_NonnyMouse wrote: »

A message upon logging in to the online banking for the co-op today informing that the available balance now includes items in transit, hurrah!

A welcome improvement, certainly, and I've just tested it with a DC transfer.

Noble_Savage

It certainly is a good improvement from the Co-op.

One question, though. Does anyone know if the available balance is now updated to take account of debit card transactions in real-time, or is it a batch job run overnight? I haven't had a chance to test this yet.