Online security made easier for BNZ customers

By RICHARD WOOD

Bank of New Zealand is cutting back the over-done security on its website to make it easier for customers to use.

The dropped features involved digital certificates and a floating keypad on screen for password entry, to fight snooping by "keyboard logging" and "screen sniffing".

Customers had to download special software to their PCs and so could not do online banking at any location. It also created a problem if a user changed PCs.

BNZ head of online solutions Phil Tait said the features had been a hindrance to customers, but were right at the time they were introduced.

"Two years ago was still pretty much early-adoption level and the approach was to oversatisfy users' concerns about security.

"The flip side of that was it actually introduced a number of barriers to customers gaining access to the product, and was reasonably slow whilst you were in it."

Tait said the new system - part of a total rewrite of its online banking system that will go live next month - "follows an industry standard that is prevalent and obviously used by all our competitors in the market".

He said the BNZ would have the same 128-bit encryption security level as other banks.

Apple Mac customers will, for the first time, also be able to use BNZ Online.

The bank has been running a pilot of 2300 customers for the new site and will do a "soft launch" by not announcing the changeover date.

Tait said that aside from the security changes, the functionality was similar to the existing system, with some developments in the automatic and bill payment areas.

One new feature allows you to create nicknames for your accounts.

The system has been developed in-house at Wellington and diverges from the development being done by the BNZ's parent company, National Australia Bank, source of the previous system.

The technology used is the native Java development environment, the bank's Vignette content management suite, and a number of middleware components to connect to existing databases.