I did not have a good first time encounter with Standard Chartered because they rejected my credit card application!! I am pretty sure it is not my salary but rather the number of months (about 6 months) I have work since I graduated. But nevertheless, I re-applied last week again and hopefully this time it will get approved.

Signage
Signage

I was invited to the Standard Chartered Breeze Bloggers Meet organised by Qais Consulting. The event was held at Boathouse Fullerton. I was there early as usual about 1 hour early and most of the staff from SCB are already there and the reception table has been set up.

Microsoft Arc Mouse
Microsoft Arc Mouse

The door gift is extremely generous, the most generous I have ever received. It is a Microsoft Arc Mouse!

Jack
Jack

Jack, the magician, was there to entertain us before the event starts and it was the first time I am seeing a close up magic and I was totally amazed!

Menu
Menu
Main Course
Main Course

You may be wondering what is Breeze, here is the text from the official website:

Breeze is a whole new way of banking that lets you manage your money like never before. Enjoy the flexibility of customising how you see, move and keep track of your money. That’s right – we put you back in control of your bank account! Best of all, we do it in a language that you can understand.

The focus of the event was Breeze for the desktop’s browser. Breeze on iPhone has been available for a few weeks in the Apple’s App Store and an iPad version is coming soon.

This is the first time I have seen Breeze in action, I have not tried Breeze on iPhone before that as I do not have an SCB account. But I will definitely get one savings account soon after seeing Breeze.

Breeze for the desktop’s browser is like iBanking 2.0. It is built using Adobe Flex and hence the whole site is in Flash. I have not seen much changes to the iBanking website of OCBC or POSB/DBS ever since I started using iBanking. Upon seeing Breeze, I think the local banks have a lot of catching up to do with regards to iBanking.

Here is a demo of it in action:

Breeze allows you to have:

  • a calendar view of your transactions by week or by month
  • eStatements which they will keep for 12 months
  • the ability to send bank cheques
  • pay bills and that includes credit card bills from other banks! No more queuing up at AXS!
  • wishlist that provide you with a virtual saving plan. This is a pretty unique feature.
  • reminders for payment. SMS reminder is in the pipeline, but for now, it will only remind you if you login to Breeze.

The only downside of Breeze is that you can’t print certain pages and copy certain text as the site is in Flash.

You can check out Standard Chartered Breeze’s YouTube Channel for more videos. I am trying to obtain some screen capture of Breeze so that you can see the UI clearer. I will update this post when I got the screenshots.

I Have/I Own
I Have/I Own
Calendar View
Calendar View
Payment History
Payment History

Did You Know

  • Breeze lays claim to the world’s first iPhone bank cheque service.
  • SCB is the first bank in Singapore to let you pay any bank’s credit card bill online
  • Breeze brings you access to over 300 billing organizations
  • Social media constitutes a major part of the bank’s efforts to promote Breeze
  • Standard Chartered was behind the “Breeze of Magic” YouTube video shot at the M1’s iPhone 4 launch

More Photos

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You can check out Kevin Lim’s photos from the event as well.