Desktop Alternative to FirstDirect "Internet Banking Plus"

anniecave

The links to be able to log onto first direct Internet Banking plus seem to not be working. It seems that the update may have happened and it's no longer available...

xxdeebeexx

anniecave wrote: »

The links to be able to log onto first direct Internet Banking plus seem to not be working. It seems that the update may have happened and it's no longer available...

I've just used it and it worked fine (ish) for me - had the usual freezing issue that I get with IE and had to log on 3 times before I could complete what I wanted to do but that's normal for me.


xxdxx

Marigold123

xxdeebeexx wrote: »

I've just used it and it worked fine (ish) for me - had the usual freezing issue that I get with IE and had to log on 3 times before I could complete what I wanted to do but that's normal for me.

It actually ran all in one go for me today, which is unusual, apart from the organisations which are broken, of course. It normally takes a couple of times through, or more, and ironically, one of the worst places it now gets stuck is First Direct.

One change that I've noticed in the last few days is that the login is no longer in a separate pop-up window, and that IBP is now in a tab in the main IE window. I doubt this is down to any change by Microsoft, as IE is no longer being updated, and I haven't changed any settings, (though there have been a couple of Windows updates in the last few days, so who knows). Apart from the fact I have been used to shifting my working browser window over so I can keep an eye on what is going on while it's updating, for nearly the last 20 years, I can't see any particular pros or cons to this, except that maybe there's less strain on the browser when not using pop-ups?

Marigold123

I was looking at the dates the posters on this thread joined the MSE forums, and unless I made a mistake the average length of time we've been on here is 11.5 years, with the two most recent having been here for 1 and 5 years. That's an interesting demographic!

anniecave

Thank you ...

I was using the link http://www2.firstdirect.com/1/2/ibp-service which gives a redirect which is only for existing customers


The alternative link of https://internetbankingplus.firstdirect.com/ibplus/homePage_10.jsp (which is available via a link to "other services" is still working - and yes I agree that it seems better than it was before.

anniecave

Marigold123 - and in reponse to your comments, that makes me 5 months younger than you. And we are old in comparison to the average...

Marigold123

I spoke to First Direct today and they finally confirmed that Internet Banking Plus will be removed from service sometime in the next few months. They don't have an end date, but the European legislation comes into force on 14th September, so the person I spoke to thought it would be somewhere around that point.

They say the decision to end IBP is separate from the legislation, but I'm sure it's connected. If all banks are being obliged to change their levels of security, then the script updating scenario for IBP will be a nightmare. They can't keep everything working as it is.

I'm hoping the eWise program, being outside of Europe, will keep going. It's clunky and ugly, but I'd rather have an ugly, clunky portal than none at all.

I've given feedback requesting First Direct to publish an end-date on the IBP login page as early as possible, so we know how long we have got. They say that as staff, they have only known it was happening for a couple of weeks. It's a shame the upper echelons at FD didn't think their customers would want to know straight away too!

EDIT 06.07.2019:

Most people will probably know this by now, but First Direct posted a message on the IBP login page a few days ago notifying customers that the service would be ending soon. They told me they can't confirm a date yet, but that it would be no later than 14th September, and that they would give customers 30 days notice, probably notifying them personally by email, secure message or through the post.

To summarise:

INTERNET BANKING PLUS WILL CLOSE SOME TIME BETWEEN 5TH AUGUST & 14TH SEPTEMBER.

tamste

Just been informed by First Direct (on Chat), IBP will cease on 26th August.

I have no problems with First Direct, and not moved account from them for years as I had access to all my accounts using IBP, but as they are withdrawing the service, time to look around again.

Are there alternatives out there that do the same thing .. i.e. browser based from laptop and one touch login to accounts across a number of banking providers?

colsten

tamste wrote: »

Are there alternatives out there that do the same thing .. i.e. browser based from laptop and one touch login to accounts across a number of banking providers?

In a word: no. None known that give you the one-touch login.

Plenty of apps displaying your balances - the one with the most comprehensive coverage is Yolt(*). Though I have stopped using it as they only support phones, not tablets (and certainly not PCs), and I find the small display totally unusable.

I have resorted to doing the vast majority of my banking / balance checking through the respective apps. After the pain of the initial set-ups, this is working very well for me, as you can use touchID / faceID for accessing your accounts, and some I can even access with Siri (e.g. Hey Siri, open Santander) and faceID. It's obviously a bit more laborious as you have to actually open many apps to see your balances but in total time, I reckon it might actually be faster than the old method. It is also, without a shadow of a doubt, less error-prone as the apps work 99.99% of the time.

Still, it would be really useful if one of the many new-fangled 'aggregator' apps would actually present a minimalist summary of all the account balances, and one that we can order to our liking rather than to the liking of some programmer who probably doesn't have more than 2 accounts themselves. So far, all I have come across offer some fanciful display that I find utterly useless as it's over-formatted and has no rhyme or reason for the grouping of the accounts. I did ask Yolt whether they could do something simple but they don't even seem to comprehend the request.

* Last time I looked, Yolt didn't cover all the accounts I have. Like the FD/ewise browser app, they don't support smaller building societies, and some of the investment platforms are missing, too. So you have to continue doing those manually, anyway.

Marigold123

tamste wrote: »

Just been informed by First Direct (on Chat), IBP will cease on 26th August.

I have no problems with First Direct, and not moved account from them for years as I had access to all my accounts using IBP, but as they are withdrawing the service, time to look around again.

Are there alternatives out there that do the same thing .. i.e. browser based from laptop and one touch login to accounts across a number of banking providers?

Thanks for posting the exact end date.

The program from eWise, the original creators of IBP, should still be available after August. It's a bit crappy looking, and still relies on Internet Explorer, but it's the only other portal-type aggregator out there. As eWise are based in Australia, it shouldn't be affected by European legislation.

It is reported to have a wider range, (or at least a different range), of organisations, and I'm told they get fixes done more quickly. I'm going to be moving over to it as soon as possible, and will continue to supplement with Money Dashboard (the browser-based version), to help fill the gaps and to get a better overview.

Money Dashboard has the advantage that (some of the time, at least), it refreshes your balances in the background. It's a bit buggy and sometimes tells you it couldn't access an account, plus there is no global refresh and you have to wait until one organisation has finished refreshing before you can update another, but you do get some kind of an attempt at a balance sheet, and can decide which organisations to include in this and which to exclude.

Good luck to everyone with their transition from IBP!