In October I participated in a trial by the National Bank of their new browser-based Internet banking service. I was able to use the trial without problem on a Red Hat 6.2 box with Netscape 4.72. The trial concluded and the new service was launched on 19 November. Since then I have been unable to access it.
When you log onto the Internet Banking home page and press Login new service, the bank checks whether you are using one of the supported browsers, essentially recent versions of Internet Explorer or Netscape on Windows or Mac. If so, you should go straight to a screen with a login prompt. If not, you should see a screen saying your browser is unsupported, and inviting you to download a supported version of IE or Netscape, or continue anyhow - the unsupported option. It was this unsupported option I used during the trial. Now using Netscape 4.72 or 4.78, selecting the unsupported option does nothing. Following the example of a SLUG member who has used the service successfully with Mozilla under Mandrake 8.0, I installed Mozilla 0.96 and Java pug-in 1.3.1. All cookies are enabled, Java and JavaScript are enabled, and there is a symbolic link from javaplugin_oji.so to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/. Under this setup, when I select Login new service, all I get is a new completely blank screen. Querying the bank has produced only a form letter saying that the system is compatible with some configurations of Linux but Linux is unsupported by them, and that the requirements are to enable JavaScript and 128-bit Encryption. It is simple to check if your system will handle this the service. You don't have to register or even be a National customer. Just go to http://www.national.com.au/Internet_Banking/0,,153,00.html and select Login - new service. You should go to the login screen, either directly or through the unsupported browser option. If you can get to the login screen which prompts you for a National ID and password, congratulations, you've succeeded. If not, you're in the same position I'm in. I don't know what to try next. Any suggestions would be appreciated. John -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
