Halifax cuts investment accounts off from the web until April 2012

1983 and all that ...

Opened my first BoS account in 1983 as they were the first UK bank to go fully online for personal accounts (using Prestel with Nottingham Building Society!).

From the front and to the back. And now being combined with Lloyds - will customers have to endure another outage if the EU/FSA force them to sell off more branches and accounts to RBS et al.

Banking, you couldn't make it up ...

Example of poor standards in british senior managers

This is what happens when you have a country where a senior manager thinks saying "I don't do this IT stuff" is a good thing, rather than a reason why they should be fired.

Wunch of bankers!

So if they've got your money you can't get access to it, but if you've got their money i bet it's a different story.

Anyway why can't they develop the new site offline and then just shut down for a bank holiday weekend while they flip it over?

HOBS

Bring back HOBS I say (Home Office Banking System) ... which was that there 1985 Prestel based 'teletext' screen mega cool dial-up banking !

This problem, as others have said, is for only a few types of accounts. All my BofS accounts are fine although they'll 'loose' historic statements. That's cr*p.

Bigger issue for me is how many banks do NOT allow home banking apps to access their date as they do in the US. That's just such a pain.

Pass books

I recall having to handle my late Uncle's probate 5 years ago. He had some Halifax accounts and to my astonishment, they didn't have proper CCLCB account numbers and sort codes but made use of the old 'passbook' number with a bodged up common a/c number. At that point I realised I was dealing with a quill pen outfit (think Gringots), still running back office systems from the 70s, and resolved NEVER to have an account there. It seems I was right.

Don't complain...

Be a client of a different bank. You punish stupidity like this with a big hit in their pockets. If half of the people leave, they will a) disappear or b) learn the lesson.

put it on a floppy disk

Why can't they put their interwebs on a floppy disk and send it to people over snail mail?

Stupidity beyond comprehension

I cannot begin to imagine the meeting that took place where some management thought it was a good idea to.

A. Make all old on-line statements unavailable, despite the fact they could _easily_ migrate these to some static state and retain an acceptable level of accessibility (even if ugly and stuck in the old format), and therefore avoid defecating on your own customers from a great height.

B. Removing a site before a shoe-in replacement is available. This is bordering on moronic. Albeit much of their stuff is just re-sold investment products. However, this is still inexplicably stupid.

Presumably their justification is solely "it saves us money to do it this way", and customers can do sod-all about it - you can play it by our terms or eff off :-).

I am with Halifax for now. How much longer is highly questionable given that their website stinks.

Thank God we saved these institutions from financial ruin during the recession. Thank God!

At last...

Finally, the beginning of the end of this www Internet fad. Knew it would never last.

Looking forward to receiving 'The Register' IT fanzine in its new photocopied format through the postbox once a month soon. Please drop me a telegram if you can no longer find my address in your Rolodex.

Bye guys

Bye!

Security too good

This is the bank which enhanced its security so that in addition to the sign-on and password you now have to enter the x, y, and zth characters of a "memorable" phrase to get in to your account - which is so memorable I can never remember it and have to have it reset every time I want to access my account. At least it keeps the usage down.

isas

It's very annoying.. thankfully it is ONLY the investment accounts and not current / regular savings accounts affected..

It'll be a bit of a pain but I can still monitor the value of my sotcks and shares ISA on google or yahoo finance all the funds are listed on there

Hiding their poor investment record

I made investments into the Halifax in October 2007 – at one point the value fell to half of what I put in and they are only just breaking even at the moment. I would have got the same amount of interest if I had put it under the bed – and without the stress of seeing it fall.

I think it may be time to ditch them and put my money somewhere else.

It's not just their Web Site

Seems to me that what is really going on is that Lloyds are dumbing down the HBOS systems to their level. "We bought them so they have to be transferred onto our systems and processes even if theirs are (marginally) better"

In the past, when you went into an HBOS branch to pay in cash or a cheque all they needed to do was swipe your debit card and take the cash or cheque. Then they automatically gave you a printed receipt.

Now you have to manually fill in a paying in slip (like you have always had to do in Lloyds). So that's more great progress eh?

Still, at least they still automatically give you a receipt unlike Lloyds where you have to ask for one and get funny looks for doing so. Wonder how long before HBOS adopt this part of the Lloyds model as well?

I agree with the comment above about "Gringots" but I think it applies to Lloyds even more than to HBOS.

Re: HOBS

Yes I remember HOBS, though I went with Nottingham B.S's Homelink service (using the BBC B and Prestel adapter of course). Online banking in the 80s was so much more straightforward.

Sounds like an opportunity for the lads in Lagos

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