What's the point?
Barclays: So sorry about LIBOR... How about some free Wi-Fi?
BT is putting free Wi-Fi into 1,500 branches of Barclays Bank - presumably so that impatient customers can do some online banking while queuing for a teller. Barclays can easily afford its £290m fine for attempting to rig the global borrowing-rate benchmark LIBOR, and thus it can easily pay for the new wireless service. …
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Monday 18th February 2013 13:55 GMT Why Not?
Obvious really
When a criminal gang (I can't say which country it will be from I'm not a prospective MP) steals your details, over badly secured wifi in a bank branch, they can tell you its your fault the criminals emptied your account and Barclays are re-possessing your house.
Can't we see some senior bank officials go to jail over falsifying government submissions?
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Monday 18th February 2013 14:38 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: 'What's the point?'
Mmmmmmmmmmmm #poptarts
I once heard them described as 'napalm covered in cardboard'.
So I'm presuming that mmmmm is due to your inability to speak after eating them, because of the third degree burns to your mouth?
I can well believe this, having once achieved the same, incendiary, effect with a jam toasty. Delicious agony - as I'm sure the Marquis de Sade would agree.
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Monday 18th February 2013 17:08 GMT Anonymous Coward
Wait a sec
Just let me stick this wi-fi enabled card skimmer onto the front of the ATM, and set up the webcam focussed on the keyboard.
OK Ivan, Jobs a good-un. You should be able to clone all the cards over the Bank's own free Wi-Fi network now. Saves me having to stay anywhere close to the thing!
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Monday 18th February 2013 14:49 GMT Steve 13
"Barclays can easily afford its £290m fine for attempting to rig the global borrowing-rate benchmark LIBOR, and thus it can easily pay for the new wireless service."
Logic failure... A does not imply B...
In fact, the mention of the libor fixing scandal appears to be completely unrelated to the minor wifi story.
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Monday 18th February 2013 14:57 GMT Andrew_b65
Swindling bastards
Hey Barclays, how about you actually try to make some money through adding value to products and services instead of just swindling it from everyone else? You might only be taking a penny here, a penny there, multiplied by ten trillion, but the money you 'make' doesn't come from nowhere.
Every casino banking market manipulation gain is a loss on a balance sheet somewhere else. False profit from ill-gotten gains. The only loser is everybody except you.
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Tuesday 19th February 2013 02:24 GMT Anonymous Coward
Banksters say woohoo to WiFi
It was originally supposed to be for the Personal Bankers, but some numpty forgot to setup a closed network with Mac address security and WEP/WAP etc to close the door.
They have since closed the open door (for now) though having a second WiFi Node (located in the banking hall) would be a better idea than locating the current nodes in the back office where the staff are well cooked with microwave radiation.
having been on a lot of barclays sites, they all have poorly located nodes for the PB's. but that was a (former)executive decision, not a proper planned site surveyed approach.
as a side note it was a former CEO that gave his misses who worked for apple the gift of the worldwide 8,000+ iPad contract, thats a nice little gift for her career.
they did have a shit fit (just after xmas) when there was a coffee shop user caught piggybacking a free node for a bit of adult entertainment during the day, so expect a white or black list table of places where your not gonna be allowed to go in the branches.
the idea of a public wifi node is a good idea as the majority of branches have terrible 2G/3G data reception, mainly due to thick outer walls as they tend be old buildings.
the wifi nodes are on a seperate dedicated BT link, so there is no risk to the existing corporate network or its VPN data stream.
if they do set up a public network, dont be supprised if you get spammed with all those annoying Barclays adverts direct on your wifi enabled device.
why miss yet another opportunity to annoy yet more of your customers and make a buck on the side. :)
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Tuesday 19th February 2013 11:00 GMT Arachnoid
Hmmm marketing ploy anyone?
Free WiFi hmm......there's got to be a business read profit related catch here somewhere so maybe having to log in with your "customer account" details including a spamable email address to access it....
Nothing in life is free you just have to work out what the small print means