Unlikely banking tech star blows stereotypes out of the water

Arthur Dreverman may well be one of world’s oldest online banking customers. 

The 100-year-old has been banking with Westpac for the past 77 years but was keen to speed up his transactions.

“I think probably advertising on the TV got me interested in enquiring about online banking in the first place, and being interested in what you can do with a computer,” he said.

“One of the reasons I was interested in getting into using the BPay and internet for paying bills is that I can see that it goes straight into the account,” he said. 

The Sydney resident first got a bank account in 1940 to deposit his army pay. But these days he likes to keep up with his share price performance using a tablet.

“If I transfer money to say, a stockbroker who I bought shares from, I can immediately look up my statement and see it’s been dealt with through the computer with no trouble at all,” he said.

He checks his finances at least once a day.

“Same as I look at the stock market a couple of times a day,” he said, adding that he never worried about the risk of online banking being unsafe.

“I think the banks have got a very good protection system in place,” Dreverman said.

Although his wife Barbara continues to balance the family’s accounts using pen and paper, “I keep telling her it’s a waste of time,” he joked.

He doesn’t miss the days of visiting a bank teller for every transaction.

“I wouldn’t go to the bank even once a month and I had never met the bank manager since the time I opened a saver account and needed some help,” he recalled.

While it may seem unusual for Deverman to have stayed with the same bank for 77 years, he said his parents banked with Westpac and two of his sisters-in-law worked there. Now his three adult sons bank with Westpac too.

Dreverman and his wife were invited by Westpac this month to celebrate its 200th year in business earlier.

The savvy centenarian is also the face of the bank’s upcoming campaign to encourage the use of online banking services.

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