Banking in the Year 2012: Changing the Temporary Pin of your BPI ATM Card

Changing your ATM pin should be a simple one-way stop from the bank, instead it becomes an agonizing afternoon of long walks to the bank branch (yeah, a BPI branch with no ATM machine in The Fort) to the next available ATM almost a mile away. Thanks BPI, here's putting new ATM cardholders through the hassle.

Good screen banking interface, mind you, should prompt the user with simple text on what to do. The BPI ATM screen doesn't tell you what you should or should not press and the bank teller would only bother to tell you once you get back to their branch after hitting a snag.

So here how it goes:
Once you get your new ATM card, you get a sealed envelope and in it- your card glued to the paper... behind the card is your unique temporary ATM pin.

When changing your ATM pin... Go to Change Pin

Once at the Change Pin section, you will see two blank boxes onscreen, this is where you will enter your PIN. Instinctively, you will enter your the 4 digit unique temporary ATM pin provided by the bank. THIS IS NOT THE WAY. This will result in an automatic error and leaves you 3 tries in order to change the PIN.

The first thing you should ENTER is the PIN you have in mind, the personal PIN you want for your bank account. Gets? (Yeah, and the teller didn't bother to tell you that) Luckily, I haven't tried it thrice or it would have resulted in a capture card or getting the account locked. Grrr...

Okay, once you ENTER the PIN you want- for example, your 4digit PIN is 1234. Enter it on the first BLANK BOX then DO NOT MAKE THE ATTEMPT OF PRESSING THE ENTER BUTTON on the ATM Machine. Out of habit, don't we press ENTER when we fill out any info? Users who do 'Press Enter' in an attempt to go the next blank box will only be met by an error message. This will result in the same error message and leaves you 3 tries in order to change the PIN.

What you should do (after kicking the ATM machine out of frustration)

ENTER the PIN you want on the first blank box- for example, your 4digit PIN is 1234. Enter 1234 then press your 4 digit pin again 1234 (continuous lang, no spaces, no enter). The numbers will automatically go below into the second BLANK BOX. Now you can PRESS ENTER. Now you have changed your PIN! before logging off the machine, it may finally prompt you for the bank's issued 4 digit unique temporary ATM pin that came with the envelope. Comprende?

Okay, I posted this because the lady next in line with a new ATM card had to go through the same USABILITY FAIL. Sorry, not all your USERs belong to the age group of natural navigators, not everyone can risk playing your bank's screen interface. I am honestly scared of the card capture fail safe in any login attempt. As I do not want the hassle of waiting days or weeks just to claim my ATM card again.

You know a simple text on the screen, on what PIN the cardholder should use would be HELPFUL! or just the teller informing us to use our desired PIN on the very first try!