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.
Which bank though? Name and shame.
Aion
Customer of them, I never was, I never will be.
Based Yoda
Not just shame, people deserve to know so they don’t open accounts with this shit show.
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.
The biggest concerns I have with this is there can’t ever be more than iOS or Android for smartphones anymore.
The big two consider that a feature, not a bug.
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.
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.
TIL. That’s depressing, somebody at the bank cared enough to deliberately ruin our fun.
I’ve not tested a banking app on a rooted phone but what I care about is escaping the ecocidal practice of designed obsolescence whereby people are needlessly forced to buy more new hardware to update their software. So I tried running a banking app on an Android emulator and it refused to run.
So there are 2 show-stoppers for banking apps for me:
- forced patronage of Google – no escape from Playstore (not sure if I’m okay with the Huawei store as an alternative)
- ecocidal designed obsolescence – emulators rejected
If a bank were competent enough to eliminate those two factors, I would also likely demand the app be open source.
Hmm. I wonder what the issue is, exactly. Just by the way Turing machines work you should be able to make it run in an emulator somehow.
Why use this bank, ever?
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.
WTF is wrong with a desktop and a web browser? Apps suck. Fuck apps.
I’m with you there.
But to be clear, the website banking web access is also an app. I don’t think any banking websites function with static HTML anymore – always JavaScript required. So forced execution of non-free software had already taken hold in banking. But now it’s much worse because phone apps are more exclusive, more intrusive, and more imposing.
A few days ago I was checking the technological history of my bank. They turned off static HTML all the way in 2013.
What did they transition to at the time? Adobe Flash Player.
Love that you are keeping tabs on the gradual decline of tech. Could be useful to build an enshitification timeline. We really need an observatory of garbage tech which then needs to be cross referenced with search results. Imagine if your bank came up in a search with a blurb next to it (sensible and functional in 2013, shitshow thereafter).
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 couldn’t you get the last 20€ from an ATM?
It’s not about the last €20¹. It’s about the last €18.45. How do you get €18.45 from an ATM?
Well, shit, that could be an answer too… cashless banks could have a special kind of ATM that has no denomination limitations. Even my local grocer has a cash machine capable of dispensing all small denominations.
So there are several reasonable things they /could/ be doing, but there is no pressure on them to be competent.
¹ I will edit my post to make this more clear.
(edit) it just occurred to me this is a human rights violation. A very minor one, but against international law nonetheless. You cannot deprive someone of their property. UDHR Art.17:
- Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
- No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Even my local grocer has a cash machine capable of dispensing all small denominations.
What’s the problem then?
That’s not an ATM machine.
Aren’t ATMs cash machines?
I honestly don’t really know. I have pretty much never used an ATM Because I live in Sweden.
ATMs are a particular kind of cash machine, but cash machines are not necessarily ATM machines. The machine I describe at the grocery store enables customers to pay for their groceries without the cashier having to touch the bank notes. The customer can feed a €50 banknote in the machine, and get back change. The grocery machine handles any denomination. But it’s not an ATM (short for Automatic [bank] Teller Machine).
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?
