UOB Internet Banking Website Error

The “500 Internal Server Error” is a pretty common catch-all error message generated by many web server software. I’m sure everyone has seem something like it at some point or other, and we all come to accept it as a “okay”. But it is not okay for an internet banking website to sport such errors. Particularly if it happens repeatedly.

Of late I’ve been having some trouble using the UOB Internet Banking website. I get double SMS OTP messages. When I try to access certain functions, the website says I can’t do so because of some session problems. Then, one day I started getting this persistent 500 Internal Server Error. It is not good. Being quite familiar with Internet technologies, system administration and web applications, I can understand what these errors are about. It may be impossible to totally prevent errors, but I think the such problems ought to be more elegantly handled. First of all, try having a more helpful display message.

Take a look at the error message that UOB’s Internet Banking website generates. It declares an error. What does it tell an ordinary banking customer who is not terribly Internet savvy? The website declares an ambiguous error that the user does not understand, it does not tell what to do next, it does not tell how to seek help, and basically it just leaves the user hanging there totally lost. How difficult is it to just display something more customer-friendly?