(Europe) Bank shut down its website and forced everyone to use its app
(Europe) Bank shut down its website and forced everyone to use its app
The closed-source app is exclusively available in these places:
- Google Playstore
- Apple store
- Huawei store
The app will only run on quite recent phones. So anyone who does not keep their OS up to date (which implies periodically buying new hardware for the shitshow platforms people much choose between) are locked out of their account. Also:
- No walk-in service
- Over the counter service requires appointment and a fee for many staff-assisted operations
- No paper statements. No phone → no statements.
The app requires SMS 2fa, so non-phone or landphone users: don’t even think about trying to use an android emulator.
If you want to close your account to escape this shitshow, you have 2 options:
- In the app use the account closure feature, OR
- Send a shit load of sensitive information (ID/passport, utility bill, bank account numbers to close, account numbers of your new external account to transfer the money to, etc) via Google (gmail) from an IP address that Google accepts.
(edit) Worth mentioning an aspect of these cashless banks that should be embarrassing for them: when you close an account, they have no cash so they cannot pay you your balance. You can pull money from an ATM but obviously only in denominations of paper banknotes. So how do you get the rest out? They expect you to open an account elsewhere and transfer it. How silly is that? Maybe you don’t want another account, or maybe you’re moving to a completely different part of the world and the transfer cost will exceed what remains.
You can hack around this various ways, like dining out and paying an exact amount by card and the rest by cash. But really, banks should be embarrassed they cannot give you cash. They shouldn’t need a vault just to secure €20 or so in change.
The biggest concerns I have with this is there can't ever be more than iOS or Android for smartphones anymore.
If anyone tried to make a different OS, no one would buy it because you need these apps for so many things that just aren't accessible otherwise. And no company will make their app for another OS because they will point out the market share is too small.
And with the talks of breaking up Google, which could really hurt Android, there is a decent concern that it will become a government created, third-party enforced monopoly for Apple. And since Apple isn't causing it, taking them to court over their monopoly would be hard to almost impossible.
If that was a real issue, I imagine you'd start seeing a compatibility layer for Android apps offered on whatever other system. iOS might be harder because of deliberate cryptographic or hardware vendor lock-in.
As many of these apps (especially banking apps) won't work on a rooted phone, I don't think they'd work on a compatibility layer.
Think DRM like BattlEye not working on Proton on Linux, certain checks would fail unless they rewrite the app to address this, and still the Play Store would be required to stay up for this to work.
Worth noting that some banks are pushing this transition in a more subtle way. By gradually removing options from their web banking and making functions that are smartphone-only.
Worth mentioning an aspect of these cashless banks that should be embarrassing for them: when you close an account, they have no cash so they cannot pay you your balance. You can pull money from an ATM but obviously only in denominations of paper banknotes. So how do you get the rest out? They expect you to open an account elsewhere and transfer it. How silly is that? Maybe you don’t want another account, or maybe you’re moving to a completely different part of the world and the transfer cost will exceed what remains.
How else are you supposed to transfer money if not digitally or in cash (btw that frankly seems Insane)?
The answer is in what you quoted: cash.
There should always be an option to cash out when closing an account. The ATM can get all but the last
€20€19.99. It’s foolish and embarrassing that the bank cannot handle the remainder.. that they are so anti-cash that they refuse to have some petty cash around for micro transactions.Or the bank could accept a small cash deposit. If the balance is €18.45, a customer should be able to deposit €1.55 so that they can pull €20 from the ATM. But cashless banks refuse to accept even the tiniest of deposits.
It should be illegal. It’s a kind of “binding”, where a business requires you to use another business. People should have a right to exit the banking system, full stop. Forcing someone to open another account as a condition to exiting (in effect) is absurd and denies people autonomy.
Apart from that, if a cashless bank insists on being 100% balls-to-the-wall anti-cash in their war on cash, they /could/ give customers who close their account a prepaid credit card funded with their account balance. Customer still has the problem of spending an exact amount but at least they could deal with it later, without fees eating away at their balance. They could do the split restaurant bill at a time of their choosing.
Why use this bank, ever?
The app requires SMS 2fa, so non-phone or landphone users: don’t even think about trying to use an android emulator.
There's ways around that, if you're really desperate. You can get paid VOIP numbers that will accept text, for example. Using an Android emulator is already a hackerway inaccessible to most people, though.
Indeed, and it’s useful to be aware of that.. things like pinger numbers. But I certainly would not cut the bank any slack for their oppressive mandate that excludes people without a mobile phone.
It’s interesting to note that some research “discovered thousands of vulnerabilities in 693 banking apps, which indicates these apps are not as secure as we expected.”
Source?