The nightmare of downloading new Bank of Ireland App

This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column

Michael Commane

Bank of Ireland hit the headlines back in August for all the wrong  reasons.

A number of customers phoned RTE’s Liveline to explain how they had been victims of a smishing (SMS phishing) scam. Some Bank of Ireland customers reported losing thousands of euro as a result of inadvertently handing over their banking information to fraudsters.

At first Bank of Ireland were adamant in pointing out that the customers were liable for their losses and refused to admit any responsibility insisting the bank: “will never text, send emails or call a customer looking for these details”.

Eventually Bank of Ireland agreed that criminals had inserted a fraudulent text into a thread containing genuine text messages from the Bank and refunded customers.

Bank of Ireland have to be commended for taking the correct action.

Last week I was thinking of what happened back in August.

I received notification on my Bank of Ireland account of an upcoming updating of their App and also notification that Bank of Ireland customers in the Republic could now avail of Apple Pay. That simply means that BoI customers can make touchless transactions using their mobile phones.

I found it all a nightmare operation. From what I can recall, when I opened the new BoI App I was told before I could proceed, an activation code would be sent to me. I entered the code.

I was asked to enter three digits of my PIN. But now I was worried that I may have been redirected to a fraudster’s site.

I became so scared downloading the new App that I eventually cancelled the operation and phoned the bank.

It took some time before I got through to a human voice. Yes, the man I spoke to could not have been more helpful. He did admit that my worries and confusion were understandable.

I was concerned that I was being scammed by a fraudster.

Later when activating  the Apple Pay  facility on my phone I received an SMS from the bank with a code to activate my Apple Pay. But it turned out that my Apple Pay was activated without my having to punch in the six-digit number. And that further confused me.

Would it not make more sense for the bank to write  to their customers informing them of upcoming changes they were making to their online banking App?

There are so many issues about banking that can be most annoying. 

Take the Bank of Ireland bank card. It is, at least for me, impossible to read the telephone numbers printed on the reverse side of the card. The reason being that the embossed numbers printed on the front of the card indent on the phone numbers on the reverse side. It would be so simple for the bank to print the phone numbers in a different place on the revers of the card. 

And remember, you may be looking for those numbers in a hurry, in panic or under pressure. It’s the very time when the numbers should be clear and legible.

Our banks need to spend more time and care listening to the concerns and worries of their customers. And guess what, they might save themselves a lot of money by doing so.