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US online bank sign in vs. Japanese online bank sign in

By joseph ⋅ February 25, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment

I’ve been meaning to blog this forever.  Here’s the sign in process for my US bank account.  Step 1, enter user name and password.

Wells Fargo bank login

That’s pretty much it.  Punch in your password and you or whoever gleams that your password is your dog’s name are in.  This is pretty weak considering what’s at stake.

Contrast with the sign in process for my Japanese bank account.  Step 1, enter your account number, pin number, and password.

Japanese bank account sign in screen

Oh yeah, it also defaults to forcing you to key in everything with your mouse instead of the keypad and the option to use the keypad doesn’t work in Firefox.  I could also give you all three credentials right now and you still wouldn’t be able to get into much account because of step 2, which requires entering three random keys from a bank-issued security card.

Japanese bank login step 2

Finally I’m in.  The Japanese style is clearly more time consuming, but I think it’s worth the piece of mind.  What do you think?

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Discussion

4 comments for “US online bank sign in vs. Japanese online bank sign in”

  1. Cultural differences are interesting, I think most western users wouldn’t be willing to trade off a fast/easy experience for this extra effort, even if it was perceived as more secure. Ideally, I think you’d be able to opt-in/upgrade your security level.

    Posted by Chris | February 25, 2009, 8:46 pm

  2. Agreed. Could probably drop either the password or pin too.

    Posted by joseph | February 25, 2009, 9:12 pm

  3. Yep. It looks like they’ve been too afraid to make a call on anything and have included it all, along with the option to turn it off.

    Maybe having all those hoops is what the Japanese expect, but if it were me I’d be wishing they made some educated decisions on my behalf.

    Information overload too, “Please click the keyboard below”. What else am I going to do with it? And will it still tell me to click it even if I’ve said I want to use my normal keyboard?

    Usability nightmare…

    Posted by Chris | February 26, 2009, 5:45 am

  4. Man, I gotta fix this busted up image formatting.

    Posted by joseph | February 26, 2009, 7:00 am

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