Trying to pay for things online without having online banking

The supermarket should not be holding your card details. I know it works for you Grace but you are at risk of your card details being accessed by someone who sees an opportunity and clears your account. Be very careful with this Grace.

It's a pain for me and I'm only 40!. The main issue is the software is poor. I can only imagine the problems it's causing for the elderly.

We believed that we HAD to download the BOI app to my phone, so we did, this was mainly to pay our Mastercard bill. We had trouble with it from the start and got very frustrated with it. However himself eventually rang BOI and asked do we really have to use the app just to pay our MC bill and the staff member said no so we deleted it and arranged for paper (yay) bills to be posted to us again and we now just go online via our desktop computer to our bank and transfer the money to pay the credit card. This system has worked for us for many years so we're thankful that we can still use it. I never use my phone for financial transactions.

We don't have a BOI account so don't need to access 365.

Had to look up 2FA.

I don't want fingerprint in the phone thanks. I can hardly get reception in the phone around here and rarely use one.

Thank you for starting this useful discussion, Brussels Sprout, and reporting back with the info! It's already helped with one of the things I've been trying to find out for months.

AIB's Digital Profile facility sounds just what my husband needs - I think. I'm slightly confused though - is it only for people who don't do internet banking? (That would be a big problem for us, as internet banking as well as online shopping are essentials where we are). Also, are AIB's SMS double-authentication codes really via SMS (with the code there in plain text), like Ulster Bank's? Some texts we get (from our mobile/internet provider, for instance) are actually MMS, as they contain a link, and we can't follow those, as the mobile signal in our area isn't up to carrying any data whatever).

still have a question or two though, and this forum seems the most relevant for them. (I'm familar with the Personal Banking one, but it's so busy and wide-ranging that that the less usual questions tend to slip down the pages before anyone who can help has seen them). Mine around this subject arose because asking AIB isn't easy, as the branch phone and email contacts seem to be for existing custemers only. (I presume that's because they can't deal with a stream of queries from switchers without neglecting their existing customers. But that only strengthens my opinion that they're the first choice in my case!).

Some background first might save a bit of time; husband and I are both in our mid/late 70s, and looking to switch from Ulster Bank to AIB. No word yet from Ulster giving us however long until account closure (3 months maybe?), but I want to start the process now, via AIB's Option B so as to get things in place at more leisure. (Small incomes plus poor infrastructure in our rural area creates enough problems already, without adding the stress of extra cliffhangers!).

We have no family in this country, but in this case the tech side of this switching isn't the problem, as I've been home computing since the mid 1980s. That was a good time to start, as for us ordinary mortals it meant learning about how they work (logically and physically), replacing/adding parts, etc (all still useful). It was also the right place for looking into 'this computer thing' (London). We're also in good (ish) health, but I've still been struggling to get clarification of some details, like how exactly to start our bank switching process. And whether dual authentication can be managed without a smartphone (hence Brussel Sprout's info being so useful). I hate to think of the problems the more vulnerable must be facing (feeling quite angry about it, almost like when moving to Ireland in the early 90s to find its computer industry conveniently making a big mystique of the subject). End of rant (sorry!).

My current devices are Windows laptop and Android smartphone. But so far, the only tech device my husband's interested in owning is his pocket non-smart phone, for calls, SMS and the odd photo. He manages his email and online shopping in whatever device(s) I have at the time, with a little help when needed.

I'm impressed with AIB's website, after Ulster Bank's which I find very simplistic and lacking in detail. (And as for Cora... a digital assistant who for instance still doesn't know what 'computer' or 'laptop' mean?)

Anyway, I downloaded AIB's Switching Pack some time ago (and again recently in case anything had changed), and printed it out last week for easier reference). I find it refreshingly well designed compared to most things of its kind (it's like they actually thought to get someone to try it who doesn't already know the subject in their sleep!). And the same with the forms - but I'm still in the dark about what to do with them, and when.

Like, complete and send them now? And by what means, and where to? Or take them with us along with the ID when we eventually get an appointment to visit the branch? And how to ask for one, when the branch's email and phone contacts seem to be for existing customers only? I also couldn't seem to find out if our branch is one of those where I'd read of switchers being able to start the process by going there (though that one's now answered). I was at least able to establish that online applications aren't possible in our case, as they seem to involve some kind of video chat, and our broadband isn't up to video streaming. (I then noticed that our UK passports exclude us anyway; thanks to b****y Brexit, I guess!).

Dealing with this kind of thing by phone can be quite difficult in our place, especially if they involve being called back. With mobile calls it's usually 'emergency calls only' inside the house, so it's out into the conservatory for those. And just to make juggling devices more fun, our wifi doesn't reach out there. Neither does the signal to the handsets for our ex landline (which I won't get started on here!) number, which I ported to VOIP. So I'd been hoping not to have to ring the central AIB number, but finally bit the bullet on Thursday. After hanging on for 40 minutes, I got through. However, I didn't learn much, as he kept fading, and unfortunately some traffic noise (which can get quite loud out in the conservatory) also drowned out a lot of what he was saying. I think he must have heard my questions okay (anf lidyenel because I did heard him saying that our particular branch wasn't currently doing any walk-in initial applications for switchers. And that the average backlog for an appointment for the branch visit was currently 6-8 weeks. Those were the only answers among what I could hear (the rest of which was things I already knew, e.g. what ID to take with us). I'm not sure if it's worth trying again. (Could drive to a town to get a decent signal, but the street noise usually makes it hard to hear the other party even when sitting in the car, and it can be fiddly to arrange visits to the few people in town that I know well enough).

If you've got this far, thank you for reading all this! And I'll be very grateful for any bits of this jigsaw that you might be able to fill in.