[nemanirc]

There has been a lot of posting on the rumors sites about new features included in the next versions of Safari, but I haven't seen anything about Safari providing better support for financial web sites. Currently, Safari does not work with Bank of America's discount brokerage web site (it works fine with the regular banking side). Also, US Bank's internet bill pay does not work with Safari. I cannot truly do without Internet Explorer until Safari is able to do these things. Is this compatibility a priority at Apple?

[larkost]

You have the wrong end of the stick. Safari is a very standards-compliant browser, far surpassing Internet Explorer on any platform. If your bank's site does not work it is because your bank has chosen to write and test it only to IE, a browser that is well know for non-standardization (even with different version of itself). If the site does not work with Safari or Mozilla, then you know that this is the problem.

There is no way for Apple to effectively emulate all of the oddities in IE without actually having the source code for that browser.

The only way thing are going to work is if your bank decides to make thing standards compliant... then it will work.

[cpac]

exactly.

and for what it's worth, I've found Omniweb (and therefore Safari) to work with:

Citibank
Key Bank
American Express
Discover
MBNA
Chase
Bank One
AG Edwards
Providian

I'd threaten your bank with changing to another bank and tell the reason is their lack of standard web support (especially if they don't even support a gecko-based browser like Camino, Firefox, or Mozilla)

[nemanirc]

Actually, the question can be turned around to What is Apple doing to get these companies to use standard code? As an individual, I can tell Bank of America or US Bank that I will move my accounts if they don't change, but it doesn't carry the weight of Apple working with them and convincing them. In fact, I am with Bank of America precisely because Firstar (which bought US Bank and adopted their name) had tepid support for on-line banking on the Mac five years ago. Either Apple has to convince these companies, or we need an organized means of letting the Mac community tell these financial institutions to get compliant. Anything like that out there?

[cpac]

Originally posted by nemanirc:
Actually, the question can be turned around to What is Apple doing to get these companies to use standard code? As an individual, I can tell Bank of America or US Bank that I will move my accounts if they don't change, but it doesn't carry the weight of Apple working with them and convincing them. In fact, I am with Bank of America precisely because Firstar (which bought US Bank and adopted their name) had tepid support for on-line banking on the Mac five years ago. Either Apple has to convince these companies, or we need an organized means of letting the Mac community tell these financial institutions to get compliant. Anything like that out there?

There are plenty of petitions and things around the web, and you can be sure that Apple's doing *some* lobbying, but for the most part, it's a grass roots customer effort that's going to change a business practice (if anything's going to change it)

[CaptainHaddock]

If online banking is important enough to you, I suggest switching to one of those banks listed and sending a letter to your old bank telling them why you left. It's an inconvenient but also unselfish thing to do, since every letter received represents, to them, dozens of other dissatisfied customers who didn't bother writing.

[nemanirc]

So, it has been over a year since I first posted the lack of Safari (or FireFox) compatibility with Bank of America's Investments web site (the banking one works fine, and I find it to be a lot better than US Bank's). The web site has been upgraded to not work correctly for Internet Explorer any more as well. I will probably be moving my accounts from there soon.

In the meantime, I have had good luck with:

• Bank of America (for banking only, as noted above)
• Vanguard
• Charles Schwab
• TIAA-CREF
• US Bank (for banking; haven't tried investments with them)

Does anyone else have updates on luck (or lack of luck) with other financial web sites?

[Horsepoo!!!]

...

[Horsepoo!!!]

Wise suggestions by Horsepoo!!!:

If your bank's website does not work with Safari, switch bank.

edit: everyone has explained what I wanted to say on the subject. Safari is a very compliant browser. If it doesn't work, it's not Safari's fault.

[jbleisure]

For what it is worth The Co-operative bank in the UK have just announced that they are delivering a n internet banking facility that will be Mac compatible in the firat half of this year.