6 ms·

World’s only sleeping bank website

41 points by ramsundhar20 4y ago

ramsundhar20 4y ago
When engineering teams are working hard to increase the uptime of their service. This banks approach is funny to ask customers to visit the next day.
- garyfirestorm 4y ago
  Wait until you learn about their approach to getting new customers living abroad (non resident Indians) They’ll ask you to physically mail in all the documents, on your dime, instead of scanning and emailing like a normal person. So I need to spend 100$ to open an account. Unlike American banks who will offer you money to open accounts.
  - navanchauhan 4y ago
    ICICI is the easiest Indian bank to open a NRI account online at. Depending on your country of residence, it can be completely online, not requiring anything to be sent by post
  - kube-system 4y ago
    $100 to mail documents?
    - crossroadsguy 4y ago
      Do you think they’ll tell you everything they need in one go? Hah :)
      - garyfirestorm 4y ago
        Exactly. And I did this when I had a chance to visit their branch in my town. And despite filing everything in front of the person and reconfirming what I was asking for, they somehow managed to send me the checkbook and cards instead of sending them to my parents address in India.
    - garyfirestorm 4y ago
      From US to India. DHL charged me that much in past.
xwdv 4y ago
I think having “business hours” for websites is an interesting experiment that could help foster a sense of community as people must visit around the same time as everyone else. Also saves on server costs. Imagine for instance if Hackernews was only open from 12pm to 11pm on weekdays and until 1 AM on weeekends.
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
  Forcing your sleep rhythm on people who have a different one than you for no reason other than a moral crusade isn't a nice thing to do. Also, you cannot make people feel a sense of community with you by annoying them. Annoying someone will make them dislike you.
  - dcow 4y ago
    Well like it or not that's how society works. Name me a community that isn't a <large world city> where things operate 24/7. It annoys me too, but when 97% of everyone observes a normal sleep schedule, who's even around to staff and support the nightlife? Why should my hours be forced upon anybody else?
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Because we are talking about a server, so the marginal cost of operating is basically electricity. And no one is forcing other bank websites to operate 24/7, it just makes economic sense to provide it since it costs so little. I would not patronize a business that had to regularly shut down their website, I would wonder what kind of weak IT department they have and why I would want to invest in that.
      - jackson1442 4y ago
        Same here. Sometimes I pay my bills at night just because that's convenient for me. If Wells Fargo started locking me out of my account outside of business hours (different from standard maintenance windows) I would immediately run to another bank. Locking bank websites after hours isn't a great proposition for an increasingly cashless society.
BoorishBears 4y ago
Sometimes these requirements aren't as ridiculous as they sound. Some websites are subject to legislation* that requires real people to be available to assist. So if they use local employees to provide assistance, the website ends up being shut down outside of business hours. This isn't a US bank, but if you see a US government site do this for example, that's usually why. (* an incidental "benefit" of legislation like this is regulatory capture. It doesn't matter if some code mill like Accenture is the worst technical choice, they already have experience providing warm bodies for the phone line. It raises the bar for getting contracts incredibly high since they're treated as a package deal) - Edit response because I'm being rate limited... It's all rooted in Section 508: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ > Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others. Each state has their own extensions and guidance too: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/state/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/state/ And in combination with those state amendments sometimes "access to information comparable to the access available to others" ends up being translated into needing someone to be accessible at all hours that the site is operated. One thing to remember is that behemoths like Accenture and co also get to tip the scale. The law is vague enough that maybe in theory you could argue that you don't need a live human to meet the requirement... that won't stop incumbents for putting proposals that make it the defacto approach.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  >but if you see a US government site do this for example, that's usually why. Do you have any examples that of US legislation that requires being able to reach a local employee? I can barely get state government departments to respond to me, and there are multiple states I have called during normal business hours that flat out say “we are too busy today, call tomorrow”. The idea of a government in the US legislating access to a government employee is laughable, based on my experiences.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Here's one for cable companies: https://www.fcc.gov/media/customer-service-standards https://www.fcc.gov/media/customer-service-standards And these banking regulations are too long for me to skim in too much detail, but they mention "telephone" 138 times in the context of various requirements of availability for certain functions and during certain times. One such example: > 7. Telephone line availability. To satisfy the readily-available standard, the financial institution must provide enough telephone lines so that consumers get a reasonably prompt response. The institution need only provide telephone service during normal business hours. Within its primary service area, an institution must provide a local or toll-free telephone number. It need not provide a toll-free number or accept collect long-distance calls from outside the area where it normally conducts business. https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-580.html https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-580.html But more specifically about government requirements, there's stuff like the ADA which requires specific means of access, and there's other things like the USPS USO which, for instance, requires 6 day per week postal service. I'm sure there are others.
discardedrefuse 4y ago
Florida put queues and business hours on its employment assistance website during the pandemic. Not sure if they've lifted them. But for a while there, it was a excellent deterrent for would-be applicants!
Semaphor 4y ago
World’s only? This was commonplace in Germany maybe 10 years* ago. All (or at least both I knew which were decently large ones: Postbank and NordOstee Sparkasse) Banking websites would shut down every night and usually on Sunday as well. This was very annoying for the night-owl I was back then. * My perception of time is notoriously bad, but I know for sure it was later than 2005
kube-system 4y ago
I've seen other smaller banks do the same as recently as a few years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still dozens of banks in the US that still do this. There are 4,200+ banks in the US.
__derek__ 4y ago
This reminds me that Merrill Edge offers some money market mutual funds as an alternative to the default settlement account that pays no interest, but the catch is that you have to place buy/sell orders during a subset of market hours.
zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
This is good for Bitcoin
- darkwater 4y ago
  You mean you can have your BTC transaction executed during the night, while the bank is sleeping?
  - zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
    Yes
    - crossroadsguy 4y ago
      Never thought that’s possible. Crypto is amazing.
tersers 4y ago
This happens in Canada for credit unions and some online banks. Fun fact, there exists a bug with EQ Bank where a deleted savings account still counts towards the maximum of 5 savings accounts. The customer service agent indicated this was a known bug and had been for some time! I'm planning to leave within the next year.
- chirau 4y ago
  Why do you need 5 savings accounts?
  - wara23arish 4y ago
    The US only insured accounts up to 250K so its common to split up accounts for that reason. what a great problem to have
    - tdhoot 4y ago
      It's only $250K per account category per bank. So 5 savings accounts would only get $250K in coverage in total.
    - vineyardmike 4y ago
      That isn't how that works. Its $250k per account type, per institution. So 5 savings accounts at the same institution doesn't increase your insurance over 1. Some banks will "sweep" the excess funds into partner banks (which would increase protection).
      - wara23arish 4y ago
        Gotcha that makes sense.
    - danuker 4y ago
      Ouch @ inflation
    - FastEatSlow 4y ago
avh02 4y ago
I remember trying to book a rail ticket in india the night before my flight there, only to find out (through lots of googling) that their system goes down every night for 'maintenance' (I guess to run nightly scripts and stuff without updates happening) Everybody seemed to know this, everybody seemed to think it's normal, but as a foreigner i thought the site had crashed. for those interested: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/irctc-wont-let-you-book-train-ticket-at-this-hour/system-upgrade/slideshow/66568562.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation...
schappim 4y ago
Australian Bank ANZ closes its FX website services after hours.
eunos 4y ago
I know a certain govt web services that only operate during working hours (0800-1700). You can't even fill online form outside the hours.
taw28 4y ago
My university’s self-service website would shut down from something like 10pm-4am every single day for batch jobs. This was used for EVERYTHING: Paying into your account, checking grades, registering for classes, webmail, etc. It seemed fairly antiquated at the time (2001 or so).

41 points by ramsundhar20 4y ago

When engineering teams are working hard to increase the uptime of their service. This banks approach is funny to ask customers to visit the next day.

garyfirestorm 4y ago
Wait until you learn about their approach to getting new customers living abroad (non resident Indians) They’ll ask you to physically mail in all the documents, on your dime, instead of scanning and emailing like a normal person. So I need to spend 100$ to open an account. Unlike American banks who will offer you money to open accounts.
- navanchauhan 4y ago
  ICICI is the easiest Indian bank to open a NRI account online at. Depending on your country of residence, it can be completely online, not requiring anything to be sent by post
- kube-system 4y ago
  $100 to mail documents?
  - crossroadsguy 4y ago
    Do you think they’ll tell you everything they need in one go? Hah :)
    - garyfirestorm 4y ago
      Exactly. And I did this when I had a chance to visit their branch in my town. And despite filing everything in front of the person and reconfirming what I was asking for, they somehow managed to send me the checkbook and cards instead of sending them to my parents address in India.
  - garyfirestorm 4y ago
    From US to India. DHL charged me that much in past.

xwdv 4y ago

I think having “business hours” for websites is an interesting experiment that could help foster a sense of community as people must visit around the same time as everyone else. Also saves on server costs. Imagine for instance if Hackernews was only open from 12pm to 11pm on weekdays and until 1 AM on weeekends.

RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
Forcing your sleep rhythm on people who have a different one than you for no reason other than a moral crusade isn't a nice thing to do. Also, you cannot make people feel a sense of community with you by annoying them. Annoying someone will make them dislike you.
- dcow 4y ago
  Well like it or not that's how society works. Name me a community that isn't a <large world city> where things operate 24/7. It annoys me too, but when 97% of everyone observes a normal sleep schedule, who's even around to staff and support the nightlife? Why should my hours be forced upon anybody else?
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Because we are talking about a server, so the marginal cost of operating is basically electricity. And no one is forcing other bank websites to operate 24/7, it just makes economic sense to provide it since it costs so little. I would not patronize a business that had to regularly shut down their website, I would wonder what kind of weak IT department they have and why I would want to invest in that.
    - jackson1442 4y ago
      Same here. Sometimes I pay my bills at night just because that's convenient for me. If Wells Fargo started locking me out of my account outside of business hours (different from standard maintenance windows) I would immediately run to another bank. Locking bank websites after hours isn't a great proposition for an increasingly cashless society.

BoorishBears 4y ago

Sometimes these requirements aren't as ridiculous as they sound. Some websites are subject to legislation* that requires real people to be available to assist. So if they use local employees to provide assistance, the website ends up being shut down outside of business hours. This isn't a US bank, but if you see a US government site do this for example, that's usually why. (* an incidental "benefit" of legislation like this is regulatory capture. It doesn't matter if some code mill like Accenture is the worst technical choice, they already have experience providing warm bodies for the phone line. It raises the bar for getting contracts incredibly high since they're treated as a package deal) - Edit response because I'm being rate limited... It's all rooted in Section 508: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/ > Under Section 508, agencies must give disabled employees and members of the public access to information comparable to the access available to others. Each state has their own extensions and guidance too: https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/state/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/state/ And in combination with those state amendments sometimes "access to information comparable to the access available to others" ends up being translated into needing someone to be accessible at all hours that the site is operated. One thing to remember is that behemoths like Accenture and co also get to tip the scale. The law is vague enough that maybe in theory you could argue that you don't need a live human to meet the requirement... that won't stop incumbents for putting proposals that make it the defacto approach.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
>but if you see a US government site do this for example, that's usually why. Do you have any examples that of US legislation that requires being able to reach a local employee? I can barely get state government departments to respond to me, and there are multiple states I have called during normal business hours that flat out say “we are too busy today, call tomorrow”. The idea of a government in the US legislating access to a government employee is laughable, based on my experiences.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Here's one for cable companies: https://www.fcc.gov/media/customer-service-standards https://www.fcc.gov/media/customer-service-standards And these banking regulations are too long for me to skim in too much detail, but they mention "telephone" 138 times in the context of various requirements of availability for certain functions and during certain times. One such example: > 7. Telephone line availability. To satisfy the readily-available standard, the financial institution must provide enough telephone lines so that consumers get a reasonably prompt response. The institution need only provide telephone service during normal business hours. Within its primary service area, an institution must provide a local or toll-free telephone number. It need not provide a toll-free number or accept collect long-distance calls from outside the area where it normally conducts business. https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-580.html https://www.fdic.gov/regulations/laws/rules/6500-580.html But more specifically about government requirements, there's stuff like the ADA which requires specific means of access, and there's other things like the USPS USO which, for instance, requires 6 day per week postal service. I'm sure there are others.

discardedrefuse 4y ago

Florida put queues and business hours on its employment assistance website during the pandemic. Not sure if they've lifted them. But for a while there, it was a excellent deterrent for would-be applicants!

Semaphor 4y ago

World’s only? This was commonplace in Germany maybe 10 years* ago. All (or at least both I knew which were decently large ones: Postbank and NordOstee Sparkasse) Banking websites would shut down every night and usually on Sunday as well. This was very annoying for the night-owl I was back then. * My perception of time is notoriously bad, but I know for sure it was later than 2005

kube-system 4y ago

I've seen other smaller banks do the same as recently as a few years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still dozens of banks in the US that still do this. There are 4,200+ banks in the US.

__derek__ 4y ago

This reminds me that Merrill Edge offers some money market mutual funds as an alternative to the default settlement account that pays no interest, but the catch is that you have to place buy/sell orders during a subset of market hours.

zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago

This is good for Bitcoin

darkwater 4y ago
You mean you can have your BTC transaction executed during the night, while the bank is sleeping?
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y ago
  Yes
  - crossroadsguy 4y ago
    Never thought that’s possible. Crypto is amazing.

tersers 4y ago

This happens in Canada for credit unions and some online banks. Fun fact, there exists a bug with EQ Bank where a deleted savings account still counts towards the maximum of 5 savings accounts. The customer service agent indicated this was a known bug and had been for some time! I'm planning to leave within the next year.

chirau 4y ago
Why do you need 5 savings accounts?
- wara23arish 4y ago
  The US only insured accounts up to 250K so its common to split up accounts for that reason. what a great problem to have
  - tdhoot 4y ago
    It's only $250K per account category per bank. So 5 savings accounts would only get $250K in coverage in total.
  - vineyardmike 4y ago
    That isn't how that works. Its $250k per account type, per institution. So 5 savings accounts at the same institution doesn't increase your insurance over 1. Some banks will "sweep" the excess funds into partner banks (which would increase protection).
    - wara23arish 4y ago
      Gotcha that makes sense.
  - danuker 4y ago
    Ouch @ inflation
  - FastEatSlow 4y ago

avh02 4y ago

I remember trying to book a rail ticket in india the night before my flight there, only to find out (through lots of googling) that their system goes down every night for 'maintenance' (I guess to run nightly scripts and stuff without updates happening) Everybody seemed to know this, everybody seemed to think it's normal, but as a foreigner i thought the site had crashed. for those interested: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/irctc-wont-let-you-book-train-ticket-at-this-hour/system-upgrade/slideshow/66568562.cms https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation...

schappim 4y ago

Australian Bank ANZ closes its FX website services after hours.

eunos 4y ago

I know a certain govt web services that only operate during working hours (0800-1700). You can't even fill online form outside the hours.

taw28 4y ago

My university’s self-service website would shut down from something like 10pm-4am every single day for batch jobs. This was used for EVERYTHING: Paying into your account, checking grades, registering for classes, webmail, etc. It seemed fairly antiquated at the time (2001 or so).