Notifications and Mobile Deposit are the 2 features from banking apps that I find compelling.

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.

Mobile check deposit is the only thing I want from my bank’s app.

I’m running LineageOS with Magisk and Play Integrity Fix. That works for my bank’s app, but I’m annoyed that they make me do it and gave their app a 1-star review on Google Play for it.

Depends on the country. I’m teaching in Thailand and here you can’t do any banking through a browser. You can only use the bank’s official app and you don’t even have a login/password for it, you have to go to the bank and activate the app in person as a foreigner (I think Thai citizens can do it online but foreigners have to do it in person). Nobody takes actual cards for the payment and you pay everywhere by scanning QR codes which has to be done through the app. If you buy a new phone you have to activate the app again at the bank’s office. It’s really annoying and the reason I probably can’t go with GrapheneOS or any other custom roms because the bank app is absolutely essential.

My bank doesn’t have a website and it makes me want to kill them.

It’s crazy that it’s even legal to only have an app

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.

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 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.

I don’t use them and haven’t missed them. I see one of my local branches has ripped out its outdoor ATM’s though. Wonder if that’s related to moving stuff to apps.

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.

I’ve never used a banking app and I do quite a bit of business with multiple banks.

I just use the progressive web app on phone, works fine for my bank

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

I’ve never used a mobile banking app. Been using smartphones since they became generally available. I don’t need any payment apps and I generally don’t do anything important on my cellphone except for communications.

Website here is awful. Paste is disabled, it’s not optimized for mobile, it’s a PitA to use, & there is literally code to check if the user is running Netscape Navigator 4. The site has a weird encoding that doesn’t allow English punctuation, & to change your email or phone number requires physical documents, ID, & a wait period. The app is poorly coded & doesn’t work if you have root, are running a custom ROM, (& likely if you don’t have Google services)—so I do just use the site. …But if we are being real, I actually always keep cash on me & cash is preferred so while the problem is still relevant, needing the app/site isn’t dire.

What is really missing for my country on the site is QR code scanning for bank-to-bank transfers that a lot of vendors use & to do some bill payment. For instance, while I could set up the electric bill to auto-debit, my internet bill only has QR scan without a physical bank number I could transfer to (& the short list of utilities doesn’t include my net)—so I take a 25-minute bike ride in the heat once a month to pay that bill but I reward myself by getting to swing by the nearby-ish Hong Kong pie bakery to get a treat & a latte to make out-of-the-way trip feel worth it.

When I do have to use the site & since there is no QR code scanning, the workflow is:

• Login (I have a script to block their paste-blocker to use my password manager)
• Create a new recipient which requires a unique name, the account number + their banking service provider, phone or email, and 12-digit SMS 2FA code (no TOTP or FIDO2 option); this process is done on a desktop-only site which is hard to work with
• Confirm that with email
• Go to transfers, select my from account (despite me only having one account & no default preference option), find that user I created, fill in an amount, do another 12-digit 2FA
• Then they want to take a picture of my phone after the transfer for whatever reason reason

This process due to bad UX can take up to 10 minutes if they are not ready. So the tl;dr is to carry cash or hope an ATM is nearby.

I had discussed it with a local & he said there has been more push towards cashless brought on by businesses/government wanting to track everything & tourists demanding their privacy-invasive ‘comforts’ like $BIG_TECH_PAY & $CREDIT_CARD options despite most folks being fine with cash. Cryptocurrency is basically never accepted either.