China's Online Banks Lack Support for Chrome, Firefox
IT Times, 8/06/12
Users of Chinese internet company Sina's (Nasdaq: SINA) Weibo microblogging platform have recently been complaining that users of the Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome browsers are unable to log into the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's (ICBC) online banking system, which requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) - and IE 6, rather than the more recent IE 9. Other users complain that banks' online sites don't display verification codes properly in Chrome, or that they have been forced to install Windows on their Apple computers in order to run IE for internet banking.
When attempting to use the ICBC's web banking interface, an IT Times reporter running IE 9 was prompted to install a secure plugin for the browser, after which the reporter was able to use the service without further issue. When using Google Chrome, the page displayed no user password or verification code text fields, making login impossible. A visit to the site using Firefox 14 resulted in a popup saying that the online personal banking service only supported Firefox 10.0.x.
Calls to the customer service lines of different banks revealed that the Bank of China supports online banking through IE 6 to IE 8, but not through more recent browsers or browsers from non-Microsoft vendors. The Agricultural Bank of China does not support Firefox; China Merchants Bank supports logins through Chrome and Firefox, but not payment operations. To date, only the China Construction Bank and ICBC support Firefox.
None of the major banks, including the Bank of China, China Construction Bank, or Agricultural Bank of China, supports the Mac platform. The Shanghai Pudong Development Bank only permits dynamic password logins - rather than certificate-based logins - on the Mac. CMB allows logins but not payment operations on the Mac. ICBC released an online banking plugin for Safari on the Mac this year, but it requires OS X 10.6.8 and Safari 5.1 or higher to run.
The reason for the poor support is reportedly that most domestic online banking platforms use ActiveX controls for their input fields - a Microsoft technology that only operates in IE or IE-based environments. Other browsers and operating systems would require banks to develop separate security controls.
Keywords: browser online banking Google Apple Firefox Internet Explorer Mozilla Chrome Safari
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