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Texting bank balances is a step too far

John Fitzsimons
by Lovemoney Staff John Fitzsimons on 29 June 2009  |  Comments 9 comments

Getting your bank balance sent to you by text is not progress, it’s madness.

I hate to sound like a grumpy old man, but sometimes I just can't help myself.

And today is one of those days. Lloyds TSB has launched an 'on demand text message balance update' facility. Basically, if you fancy checking your balance, you send a text to Lloyds and you get a text back showing not just your current balance, but also detailing your six previous transactions.

Obviously, the thinking is that if you are too lazy to drag your carcass to an ATM, or to a computer to check your account online, this is a decent alternative.

What next? Applying for a mortgage via Facebook? What about paying your credit card bill via Twitter? Or having a chat with a financial adviser on Instant Messenger? 

There is a reason for my scepticism, besides the fact that I feel like I'm being left behind by technology - personal experience.

I got my mortgage with Cheltenham & Gloucester a couple of months ago, a member of the Lloyds stable. C&G also offer the full range of text message updates with mortgages. So I received a text from them when they got my application, and when they booked a date for the valuation, and various other stages within the process.

The idea was that using instant technology would keep me up to date with the progress of a fairly stressful process. Trouble is, it's utterly useless. Because I went through a broker, he was also notified of all of this progress, both by text and by email.

And guess what? He got the email updates at least a full day before either of us got these blasted text messages. So when I got the text telling me that the valuation of the property had been booked, I already knew. It was the same in each stage of the application. A complete waste of time.

Now thankfully, because I had my broker to rely on, I knew that I could get genuine up to date information, and anyway, it didn't really matter if I got the information a bit late with the mortgage.

But that's not the case with a bank balance. What if I am getting towards the end of the month, and nearing my overdraft limit. If I check my balance by text, and it is out of date - perhaps a direct debit has come out of the account - and I think I have more money than I really do, I could have a bit of a shop, and end up getting whacked with a fine.

Besides, would you feel secure getting such sensitive information by text message? I'm paranoid enough about checking my balance online, let alone doing it on my phone.

Personally I couldn't think of anything worse than signing up to this harebrained idea. Good luck to you if you do, but I'll stick to more traditional ways of monitoring my finances.

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Comments (9)

  • gordonbanks42
    Love rating 11
    gordonbanks42 said

    I'm having a real problem with this article.

    1. texts are far more secure than emails - that's why bankuse texts for things that they wouldn't dream of doing by email.

    2. Who says that what you see on the ATM screen is any more up to date than what you would see in the text message? Don't know about the bank(s) you use, but I have never seen an ATM balance advice screen that says "This balance was guaranteed accurate as at HH:MM:SS."

    Report on 01 July 2009  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Shadamehr
    Love rating 0
    Shadamehr said

    My bank, GnatMessed, offer this service to me (as for many other banks, this is actually done by MoniLink).

    And let me tell you, it is an utter, utter complete waste of time, in exactly the way the Article hints at.

    FIVE times, it has led to us being charged for insufficient funds (we live on the very limit of our savings just now), by supplying us with wrong or outdated information, or moreover, just not supplying it at all.

    On three occasions, the bank have refunded these costs, once it has been explained to them how it has happened, and thepermanent shortcomings in this Monilink Service.

    But this does not stop the sales blurb telling you "always be alerted when about to go into the red".

    Despite the Lending Team at my Bank telling me that "the service is not in any way, to be relied upon as a true indication of a customer's current balance".

    That's a million miles removed from the sales blurb of the service, methinks.

    In short though, the Monilink service CAN NOT tell you that you have become overdrawn in as simple a method as that. It can merely be set up to show a low limit alert, and a high credit alert, as well as a weekly balance message.

    So even if you set the low level alert to £1 (you can't use zero), then if you get a warning in time (which is rare), telling you of this, if you rush along to the bank to credit sufficient funds (as my bank does let you do by 2pm), then it means that should the same thing happen the next day, or a few days later, you WON'T even get an alert about it, as you will not have gone into the high credit amount trigger, to 'reset' the status, whereby it will again tell you if you are running low/gone over.

    In short, it is NOTHING like the sales blurb, and has ZERO use from a Text Alert point of view - in fact, worse, it gives a totally false and untrue sense of security.

    The only value, and even that is not a great indicator, is that you can use it as a form of mobile banking to get a mini statement on phone, or see current balance.

    But this too makes no allowance for any charges to be incurred, so is not a great use.

    But certainly, from the Text Message alerts perspective, this is all the things the Article Author worries it may be, and so much worse on top.

    And as MoniLink is used to provide this service for many other banks too (Lloyds TSB's is in house I am led to believe though, so might be better), then it means Text Message banking alerts for most of the UK Banks, is a complete an utter waste of time, and totally unreliable.

    Report on 01 July 2009  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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