Edit: and by switching i don't mean going to some tinfoil grayweb nonsense. Go to their direct competitor.
Some banks are phasing out code cards or SMS verification for 2FA, and the only way to get the second factor for logging into the online banking website on your computer, is to use the bank’s app on your phone.
This is utterly false. Yubikey, TOTP-based solutions, there are options. It is a choice by the businesses to not implement those options.
My bank only allows me to do Zelle (instant p2p money transfer) via app, not that a browser would be incapable.
My HOA started mandating Zelle as the only way they will accept payments. So now it appears that I have no choice but to use a device that supports my bank's app if I want to avoid getting a lien put on my house.
Or there should be the option of opening another account, at a less tyrannical institution, to use for those payments.
Let me tell you how that tends to go down in the real world. The HOA doesn't have a physical office or anything. It's some random address and random suite. Maybe it's a document processing company or some other third-party processor. There's some non-trivial chance that some $15/hr kid who may or may not have been raised right is opening the envelopes and feeding the contents into a scanner.
So I stuff my HOA dues in cash in an envelope and then go down to the post office to stand in line and get it delivered certified with a return receipt. I get the return receipt. Then the HOA puts a lien on my house. I say, "But I made the payment on time!" Then they say, "Naw-uh." Then I say, "Sure I did, I sent it in cash and I have a return receipt." They say, "We have no idea what you're talking about."
<sad trombone>
> Or there should be the option of opening another account, at a less tyrannical institution, to use for those payments.
How can I find out which ones let me use Zelle through their website? I don't trust anyone I can find at a branch or on the phone to give me the correct answer, because chances are they all personally use the phone app and really have no idea. I guess I can start opening up random accounts with random banks until I find one that works. For now.
I think we're missing the point entirely by talking about cash and hopping around banks and all that. The point many people are trying to make here is that life is already being made unreasonably difficult for those of us choosing to use Libre computing platforms, and there's a plausible reality in the future where choices go from inconvenient to scant to nonexistent.
The banks don't need your money.
If your bank account gets drained and you'd made a big song and dance about how you selected that bank specifically because it had less security on its mobile app, well, nobody will have any sympathy for you.
If your bank is equally secure but uses dedicated hardware devices instead of smartcard readers, then all you did is swap one bit of secured hardware for another, making your life less convenient and in return for what?
A bank has to know it's communicating with the real human who owns the account and not a hacker. It's going to achieve that one way or another. You'd be much better off accepting the tech and finding ways to achieve your goals within it, like by setting up a project to maintain whitelists of known good/secure OS builds. You can then make libs that wrap SafetyNet and eliminate the false positives. Even if banks don't start using it anytime soon, other smaller companies might and it's a place to start. Of course the fact that virtually nobody cares about custom operating systems to begin with is the biggest hurdle you'd face, not the tech or business requirements, but that is partly on the OS developers. You can't complain nobody cares about if you're not giving anyone a reason to care.
If my phone breaks or is stolen, I can’t actually buy a replacement phone now, as that requires spending money, which requires 2FA which requires my phone.
Indeed.
> If even some 10-20% of IT professionals (with salaries to match) up and leave for a less shit bank, trust me, they will care.
That's an impossible number of people to coordinate on something like this, and even if, I doubt banks would care. There exist no less shit banks, and retail is a rounding error anyway.
Banks aren't shit because of incompetence or a not-give-a-damb attitude. They're shit because it makes them more money, both directly and by reducing risks.
A mobile phone app can let users "deposit paper checks from home" without ever driving to the bank branch by taking a photo of the check with the smartphone camera. Last time I looked into it, a desktop website couldn't enable check deposits with a webcam. (EDIT: I don't mean technically not possible. I meant that the banks deliberately chose not to have the websites utilize desktop/laptop webcams as an alternative to smartphone apps.)
Smartphone bank apps also have "push notifications" to immediately alert you of suspicious activity on your account.
But if one never uses the extra features that smartphones bank apps enable, then yes, desktop bank websites can be seen as perfectly equivalent.
"Suspicious activity" is such a bad strawman argument, i'm not sure how to address it. "Just thought you'd want to know your money is gone, lol." Either you do N+1 factor authentication for real, or you just shouldn't bother. Browsers have had push notifications for quite some time now too... so even if it was a worthwhile feature, it doesn't need an app.
True, but the key word you used is "most". E.g. My home insurance refunds an annual dividend back to me and their method to pay me is paper check. Not an electronic direct deposit, nor a VISA giftcard, nor even a "credit" that can be applied as a discount off year's premium. It's a paper check.
>So of course it _can_ work just the same there.
Sure but that's talking in hypotheticals. Today, I have the reality of a paper check to deal with and Bank of America and Chase websites do not have options to upload images of checks for deposit. (Chase does have a paper check scanner option that doesn't require mobile phones but that's only for commercial accounts: https://www.chase.com/business/banking/services/quick-deposi...)
>"Suspicious activity" is such a bad strawman argument, i'm not sure how to address it. "Just thought you'd want to know your money is gone, lol."
No, you misunderstand. The better banking smartphone apps will require interactive approval from you to allow a particular suspicious transaction to happen. This prevents your money from being gone. (Example screenshot: https://www2.bac-assets.com/online-banking/spa-assets/images...)
> Browsers have had push notifications for quite some time now too...
No, web push finally came to Safari in iOS 16.4 which was just a few months ago in April 2023.
From the tone of your reply, it seems like you'd rather be argumentative instead of acknowledging that bank apps have some extra features that's convenient for some users.
Of course, a bank should be able to send you a text on the service of your choice. But they won't.
I really want a general-membership credit union with stellar technology, but I haven't found one yet. Does your credit union by chance offer open membership?
Why not?
No message, no nothing, just close the socket.
But this bank routinely violates EU directives so I'm sure if there's a rule they don't care about it.