Earlier in the year I reviewed financial services website compliance.

Choice recently published a short note on internet only loans (article available free online) as well as a brief review of the websites of the "Big Four" Banks (not available online, only in October 2006 hard copy magazine).

Choice’s criticism of the websites of ANZ, Commonwealth, NAB and Westpac Banks was that information about applying for a first-home loan and for signing up for a low-rate credit card was hard to find.

In particular, analysis by Forrester found that:

• key fee information was missing or buried;
• some type was too small to be legible;
• home pages sometimes lacked enough information about what was on the site.

On the plus side (according to research by Forrester): ANZ has a range of useful tools and calculators, and the Commonwealth and NAB websites allow users to save online applications for later retrieval and completion.

But according to Forrester the sites do not meet best practice international standards.

In a separate article on credit cards
(fee payable) Choice complained about a lack of information on websites
about methods of calculation of interest, although it complimented ANZ
on its explanation.

As I observed in my report, financial services websites require good design, good writing and compliance input.