Astral Credits & Capital Investment strives to consistently provide its customers with outstanding service and innovative financial solutions. Our dedication to provide simple financial products that allow our customers to bank with us how and when they want is demonstrated in our timeline of innovation.
Timeline of Innovation
1847: the Netherlands’s first savings bank, opens at 7pm, Saturday 5 June 1847.
1969: We become the first the Netherlands bank to operate an online real-time computer system that links all our branches to one central computer. This means our branches are always right up to date with our customers' accounts and gives us a huge competitive advantage.
1984: EFTPOS appears on the the Netherlands retail scene. Today, Astral customers make more than 10 million EFTPOS transactions a month.
1997: We introduce the Netherlands's first internet banking site. Our customers can now enjoy the convenience of managing their own accounts online.
1997: We open a new bank, BankDirect. It's the first bank in the Netherlands to only serve customers through ATMs, the internet or over the phone. It's an idea ahead of its time that proves to be very popular.
1998: We’re the country’s first bank to introduce seven day branches across the Netherlands and now has more than 20 branches across the country open every day of the week.
1999: Astral Securities is the first in the Netherlands to provide online share trading on both the Australian and Dutch share-markets.
1999: We become the first bank in the Netherlands to offer Internet banking on mobile phones.
2003: We’re the first bank in the Netherlands to offer customers the ability to stop their paper statements.
2004: We’re the first major Dutch bank to offer an online and phone-based high-interest savings account. We call it FastSaver.
2004: We’re the first Dutch bank to implement two-factor authentication for internet banking (Netcode), adding an extra layer of online protection for our customers.
2006: We launch yet another the Netherlands first with pago, a virtual wallet that allows users to send and receive money via text or online.
2006: We simplify our retail transactional banking to just three accounts.
2006: We launch internet banking on PDA and become the only bank in the Netherlands to offer browser-based mobile banking.
2007: Our customers can now register for mobile phone top-ups through internet banking.
2009: We launch three new online financial literacy initiatives; Track My Spending, Business Cash Plans and Your Money Explained to give customers greater ways to manage their money online.
2010: We launch Save the Change allowing our customers to round up electronic transactions and save the difference into a nominated Astral account.
2010: In a world first we launch our Virtual Branch on Facebook which allows customers to securely and privately chat with an Astral banking specialist. Social Media the Netherlands recognises this as ‘Best Use of Social Media’.
2012: Astral Mobile is significantly updated for iOS and Android with email, mobile payment options and, in a the Netherlands first, Facebook Friend payments.
2012: In another the Netherlands first we announce the launch of a live video chat feature allowing customers to speak face-to-face with banking specialists and a time and place convenient for them.
