Speaker: Banking on a relationship
33 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 Newer→ Last
-
Cal me a union member, but I kind of like the idea of a bank where the people who work there have predominantly 9-5 jobs. I'm happy to sacrifice a bit of convenience to protect that. I have, however, no idea if the lack of after hours service you experienced with Kiwibank has anything to do with Kiwibank affording its workers family-friendly working conditions.
-
I've travelled overseas using a Kiwibank credit card with no problems. Maybe this is more a case of specific cockups than a general issue?
-
Sounds tough. But not my experience - and we've been with Kiwibank since soon after start-up. I'm sticking with them. They don't just employ Kiwis - they return profits to the govt, reducing our taxes. The Ozzie banks? They avoid paying any tax here however they can ...
-
I'm also putting in a good word for Kiwibank here. Moving the majority of our finances over from BNZ to them has been a good move.
-
The only negative experience I've had with Kiwibank in the last ten years - both business and personal accounts - is the ridiculously high margins they charge on foreign exchange deposits, much higher than other banks. They were unwilling to negotiate, so now I use a third party FX provider and Kiwibank gets nothing. Other than that though, they've been great. I've travelled with their cards and had no hassle.
-
Don Reid, in reply to
Cal me a union member, but I kind of like the idea of a bank where the people who work there have predominantly 9-5 jobs.
For years I agreed, but now (and I'm still embarrassed by it) I find it annoying when staff aren't available. I guess I've been working on salary too long and before that on contracts, getting paid the same no matter how many Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights I do. Nothing gives me phone rage more than a 'we're closed' message at 5.01pm.
-
I carefully tell Kiwibank whenever I'm going overseas, with a list of countries I might be spending money in. They have yet to decline my card while I'm travelling.
I used to do that with Westpac too though (with no problems). I guess I'm just scared about being stuck a long way from home with no working cards.
-
BenWilson, in reply to
I kind of like the idea of a bank where the people who work there have predominantly 9-5 jobs.
I don't. The only thing I'd like about that is the price. It should cost a lot less. Which it seems like it does.
But to get around issues, presumably it's doable to just maintain another CC with a different bank? It's redundancy, but being able to pay for things 24/7 is pretty important to me.
-
Danielle, in reply to
Nothing gives me phone rage more than a ‘we’re closed’ message at 5.01pm.
Think about that person going home to eat dinner with their kids. It might help.
-
Don Reid, in reply to
No, not really. Millions of us have kids (myself included) and most of us eat dinner. But few of us get the chance to walk out at 5 and not look back.
-
Yes, best to steer clear of images of the bank staff having after work beersies while you can't pay for dinner for your own kids.
-
There are a range of people who might want a job outside regular working hours, especially if they get paid a premium for it, could work from home, etc.
What about hospo staff, electricity workers, medical staff, labour inspectors and all the other people who have to work odd hours to provide essential services? Do you never go to a bar or the shops after 5?
Also, investing in better tech so that more issues (I'm stuck overseas and my card just stopped working) can be handled online.
(I'd never travel without two cards from separate banks).
-
Danielle, in reply to
I’ve just re-entered the “walk out at five” (or six in my case) workforce after some years working from home, and let me assure you that when I leave my workplace it is completely delightful not to give one solitary damn about work until I return the next morning. No one gets paid a premium in customer service roles, so if the one pathetic “perk” of the job is that you don’t have to think about it outside working hours, I say more power to them. And me.
ETA I am willing to bet that there are not nearly as many people who WANT to work odd hours as there are those who are FORCED to work odd hours. For crap money.
-
it looks like you have to have travel insurance for your Kiwi Credit card - and it has to be a MasterCard Gold or an Air New Zealand Airpoints Platinum Master :
To make a claim:
from within New Zealand, call us on 0800 521 521.
from overseas, call collect on +64 9 985 5000.
We’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – please call us as soon as you can after something goes wrong. -
I don't believe anyone's saying "you should work longer hours because family" but, when you advertise your bank as equivalent to any other bank, you need to mean it. And when you operate globally, you need to manage those relationships, even if it means having an out of hours rent-a-callcentre in a country that doesn't share your timezone.
I doubt that CJ would have had much better service from any of the NZ banks over Easter though.
-
It may be a general issue.
They put a hold on my card because they didn't like the look of a US$5 donation I made to the ALS - a perfectly legitimate organisation (the ice-bucket challenge chaps). They didn't bother to tell me. Or try to contact me. It was Christmas. I had to go into the bank to sort it. And then, after being assured the card was active ... it wasn't. Oh what a merry chuckle I had in the bookstore. -
Murray Hewitt, in reply to
Having been the victim of credit card fraud before, I can tell you that it is quite common for the thieves to register a minor charge on your card to some type of charity - I guess to see if it works - and then blitz it up to the max limit. Not defending Kiwibank (I have had other silly issues with them), just FYI.
-
I’ve had two credit card whoopsies while travelling.
One was when I went to New York for Macworld Expo and the hotel blocked out the cost of my stay (after saying they wouldn’t do that, because I wasn’t the payer) and I suddenly started getting declined. I called Westpac in NZ, who were great (it was a weekday) and after a few questions instantly gave me a couple of thousand temporary credit.
The other one was stupidly leaving my card in an ATM in Saigon and not realising till the morning. After not having much luck on the internet, and there being no Visa service office in Vietnam, I somehow wound up calling Visa’s regional service centre in Australia, who were awesome. They wired through some cash that day (exciting motorbike-taxi ride to get it) and there was a new generic-Visa card waiting for me two days later in Singapore.
-
izogi, in reply to
is the ridiculously high margins they charge on foreign exchange deposits, much higher than other banks.
How much does Kiwibank charge?
Most of my present income comes from a company in Australia which I invoice. Every time they pay a monthly invoice, ASB takes NZ$15, which has always miffed me but it'd be a pain to change banks right now. It's being paid from Commonwealth Australia, which owns ASB and had close enough ties that money shows up almost immediately. It's hard to understand what justifies the charge.
An additional annoyance is that ASB provides no record on the statement that it's taken $15, so in the official record it always looks as if the client has paid me less than what I invoiced. I've raised this with the bank which predictably refused to care.
-
richard, in reply to
If you are selling a vital product that is going to be used in multiple timezones (and a credit card is exactly that) you have to provide 24/7 support.
Just as the power company will show up at midnight if someone hits a power pole outside of your house, and hospitals stay open after 5.
-
Danielle, in reply to
Who’s even disputing that? I’m just saying that a general grump about CSRs in non-essential industries getting to go home at 5pm is, I believe, misguided.
(ETA: everyone appears to think I'm still talking about Kiwibank. Only one of my posts in this thread was about Kiwibank. Topic? What topic? :) )
-
Ha. I use Kiwibank when I'm in NZ, which is a few weeks every few years, and I've always found them wonderful -- not like a bank at all. It's possible they are not enough of a bank for us five- percenters who travel the world and all, but for ordinary decent citizens with not much money, I can't imagine why you'd want any other bank.
-
kiwicmc, in reply to
If you are receiving regular income from overseas you should definitely check out a third party foreign exchange broker. When I signed up to mine we went back over six months transactions to discover the ANZ was charging a 1% worse exchange rate that the broker would give me, that's before the fees. "Hope you haven't been doing this long" he said, nah just eight years I said...
-
Julian Melville, in reply to
Hi izogi - From Australia, per $10k transferred, Kiwibank ends up costing several hundred bucks more than the big banks to receive the money. I switched to HiFX (hifx.co.nz) and they've been great. It costs $15 to transfer less than 10k at a time but you'll make that back on the rate difference easily. Right now, for example, 10k AUD becomes 10,599 NZD if sent to Kiwibank and 11,077 NZD if it arrived via HiFX. Like kiwicmc above, it took me way too long to figure this one out :( PM me if you need any more details.
-
Anne M, in reply to
I'd have been very happy if they had queried it. Even put a stop on it until I replied. They have my email, they have three phone numbers and my snail mail address. They used none of them.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.