Banking apps seem to be a motif among things that don’t play well with privacy ROMs. My bank’s website does everything I could want out of it. I think I might be ignorant to something.
- What about banking apps is especially compelling?
- How often do banks put must-have features behind an app?
- And should I be concerned that banks might move away from offering services through browsers?
It’s a must for me. My phone is my primary day-to-day computer, so I need to be able to so everything from that. Unfortunately that is also why I’m not using graphene OS, because our government 2FA system doesn’t work in graphene OS (even with play services installed) so it’s impossible to do anything. I can’t check anything WRT banking, schools, taxes, daycare, doctors appointments, hospital record or change anything that requires the involvement of city hall, including checking digital mail from the municipality or government. It’s basically not possible to function in our society without it.
Out of curiosity, what do older citizens do? Like those in their 80s? Many here do not have a smart phone or mobile.
For banking and other official business, they have to go physically. If their bank has no physical department near them well then it sucks to be them. For digital mail you can apply for exemption and you will get physical letters.
You can order a digital code generator so you don’t need the app if you still want 2FA for digital handling. But I don’t want to have to carry that with me it would be a significant inconvenience for me.
Wow, that is pretty hostile to the elderly.
I mean, it’s been 15+ years since smartphones hit the market as a regular device, so those people where only in their mid/late 60’s when that transition happened. And there are solutions in place for both digital access without smartphone and physical only access. I’m not sure I see how that is hostile to elderly or people that can’t/won’t use a smartphone or insist on physical access. Obviously physical access is going to be a hassle, that’s why it’s not the default anymore.
Go to the bank in person
Wow, that is pretty hostile to the elderly. Imagine those who struggle to get about? Excluding them from society.
My bank’s app has way less functionality than the web version, but it’s used as a second factor to auth some operations, so I have to use both.
I don’t like smartphone and won’t use apps for anything important.
Could you elaborate? What kind of phone do you have and do you use a free messaging application like Whatsapp?
i have an android for work and I just have the work stuff on it. personally I use google voice.
Cashing checks and zelle are the big ones
Same here, mobile check deposit and Zelle are literally the only things I’ve ever needed a bank app for.
I used to never use Zelle for anything but too many friends/family want to use some sort of app for exchanging money & that’s usually what we settle on. And my old landlord wanted rent paid via Zelle so that was another thing that forced me to install a bank app for Zelle purposes.
Mobile check deposit is a requirement when dealing with a bank without any locations nearby. In practice I only need to use that once a year or so, checks are kind of rare nowadays unless you’re a business owner with clients/customers paying with checks.
For some banks, like Ally, you don’t need the app to transact in Zelle. But yeah, I must have one for check-depositing.
My bank’s 2FA works only via their app or via SMS. For SMS I would have to pay per each received SMS.
The app perfectly works without safetynet, with microG, rooted with magisk but hidden by zygisk, so I’m lucky. At one update they added a popup at start after login about asking to add my card to Google Wallet (or whatever it’s called nowadays), and it’s not implemented in MicroG, so I can’t open it since that version. I just downgraded to the last working version and blacklisted its upgrades in Aurora, and I hope they won’t block my old version in the near future.
It’s a very progressive small local bank, I will contact them about this issue if they block my old version to make that dialog optional.
Apparently US apps suck since our system is a dinosaur.
I don’t use them. Web banking works completely fine for me. Back when I did use them, though, I always used them on privacy ROMs/GOS specifically. Went through 4 different banks and all their apps worked fine for me on GrapheneOS. No Google Play services either.
In Finland, extremely.
The banks here provide digital ID verification online. You use it to log into tax services, the national health-care database, to apply for schools, other education-related stuff, apply for welfare, register trade names… etc. The list goes on and on.
Stuff you’d otherwise have to personally visit or mail documents to offices of various government institutions for, can be done extremely smoothly online.
With my bank, the app is used for one of the verification steps. When verifying your identity online, you need to authorize the login from the app by entering a PIN from memory when prompted. There are alternatives but this is by far the most convenient.
The same banking app also notifies me the second any money comes into or leaves any of my accounts. No transactions can occur without my knowing. It lets me know when I receive my pay, or when an electronic invoice comes in (power, phone bills, etc. come right into the app), gets automatically paid, or when explicit authorization is needed due to one being irregular.
Most of the services my bank provides can be accessed via browser, but the stuff above is the kind you can’t achieve in a browser.
Honestly OP Pohjolas app is so feature-rich I’ve been able to pretty much set it up to run my finances for me. All I do is keep an eye on my accounts to make sure things are going right.
I remember when I got here it was a nightmare for the first few months when I didn’t have strong auth. It took several months to open a bank account and you basically can’t do anything without that stuff
Pretty much. Helping my grandmother deal with misplacing or forgetting her login details has been hell a couple times.
It’s extremely convenient when just go about your life with it already on hand, but for obvious reasons the security measures are extreme and it’s a pain to set up or recover your id.
2FA must be done through the damn app. It’s TOTP (six digit) but locked behind god knows what. I asked for alternatives and they looked me like I was a caveman.
Never used them and I likely never will
My bank only has an app, no website option, but luckily it works just fine on GrapheneOS with no Google Play. I barely use it anyway as I pay cash everywhere possible
I just use the progressive web app on phone, works fine for my bank
I think your largest banks like your Wells Fargo’s and Chase and Discover, etc. are going to take quite a long time to move to app only stuff if ever. However, newer entrants such as chime do lock functionality behind their app and make their websites really terrible. So I would avoid those.
I’m in the UK. I do not use them. I can login via website, and use text as 2FA. I do not need to use it out of the house but have that option if I want.
I pay via bank debit card.
I would be surprised if they app locked features. It would exclude elderly and probably be illegal.
In the UK as well. My bank is pushing the phone app, and making it difficult to use the website without a phone. I will probably change my banking provider soon.
most banks here require 2fa so theres that
and most block even it on custom roms
cant wait for this shit to be cracked already