ANZ bank invests in free Wi-Fi access

 

Free internet on Sydney ferries, Melbourne train station.

ANZ bank has partnered with CafeScreen to offer free Wi-Fi access at 100 Australian cafes, train stations and ferries until the end of January to advertise its new online banking site.

In October, the bank will offer Wi-Fi access at cafes in Melbourne (46 cafes), Sydney (46 cafes) and Brisbane (10 cafes). In November, it will offer Wi-Fi access at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne during the Spring Carnival week, in which 500,000 consumers are expected to pass through the turnstiles.

For these initiatives, ANZ has partnered with CafeScreen, which already offers WiFi services at a number of cafes and public spaces. Ruwan Weerasooriya, CEO and founder of CafeScreen told iTnews the company uses a range of ISPs to spread its risk. He said the Southern Cross Station campaign will most probably use the DSL and 3G networks of Telstra, Optus and iiNet.

In January 2010, ANZ will offer customers of Sydney Ferries their first taste of free Wi-Fi access as they travel to work.

The free Wi-Fi access, available for only one month in each location, is being used as an "above-the-line" advertising campaign to raise the profile of ANZ's online banking website.

Users are asked to agree to terms and conditions before being redirected to ANZ's new banking site

"We are offering free Wi-Fi access during the next four months in these high-traffic locations because we recognise people are increasingly time-poor," said Louise Eyres, group general brand manager at ANZ.

"This is just one way we can provide convenient and simple online access to people so they can do their internet banking, surf the net or have access to other online services while they are travelling or having lunch or a coffee."

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ANZ bank invests in free Wi-Fi access
Source: Sydney Ferries
"slatts, Yes - I always use Firefox! (interesting to see the exception test code for IE6 or earlier in the ANZ page source code!) and yes - I can use no-load/no-scripting instructions BUT then - ..."
By wjc
 
 
 
Comments: 3
wjc
Oct 1, 2009 7:31 PM
Well - I tried, I saw, I gave up!

Here we go again with the dreadful arrogance of Australia's corporates. They assume that all of their customers have full and ready access to high speed broadband services and so they load up their base home page websites with dense, bandwidth hungry Flash videos, images and the like. Well, I have just given up on the new ANZ banking website.....for all ANZ customers on dial up because of pair-gain and like telecoms disasters that still exist everywhere, the new website is UNUSABLE!
Tell ANZ!!!

I simply gave up waiting as ANZ captured my link and started to download Flash video, restricting all other access.

Minister Conroy - we need regulation that prevents web servers from capturing a connection with high priority, without permission, through the use of such pointless systems as Flash videos and similar systems for simple transaction oriented functions and the like. All entities MUST be compelled to offer "text only" or low-order priority download sites, particularly those government sites where you have a say, to enable dial-up, pair-gain, and even ADSL 1 (lucky people) "victims" reasonable access to services.
Slatts
Oct 1, 2009 8:16 PM
wjc, what you need is Firefox (the page I've linked to has all versions for all operating systems and all languages. I'd go for "English British"), the NoScript addon. and the Flashblock addon to stop the flash stuff from loading unless you tell it to.

I was more interested in the fact that a bank is setting up a public hot spot so people could access their site.
Is it just me or doesn't this sound very secure?

wjc
Oct 1, 2009 9:07 PM
slatts,
Yes - I always use Firefox! (interesting to see the exception test code for IE6 or earlier in the ANZ page source code!) and yes - I can use no-load/no-scripting instructions BUT then - well - you get really nothing! (Imagine if we all stopped JavaScript - remember that was actually proposed years ago as a security measure but imagine if JavaScript was outlawed today!)

Yes - I agree with your point about the wifi sites - we can only assume - can't we - that ANZ would not allow open, unencrypted access schemes.
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Source: Sydney Ferries
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