well, in brazil you even have gbieh.dll - an undeletable, unkillable, always running, mysterious, "security" file/process from banco do brasil. http://www.file.net/process/gbieh.dll.html
that's even (slightly) worse than a java applet.
that's even (slightly) worse than a java applet.
They are all highly regulated and with very little incentive to innovate. So they can screw around and do pretty much nothing at all. The fascist/socialist banking system that exists across the globe is even more pronounced here.
For those of you that can read portuguese, I recommend this article: http://www.mises.org.br/Article.aspx?id=1387
I have accounts on three banks that work well with Ubuntu and Firefox. Only one of them mandates a Java runtime to be installed (and only enforces the requirement on Windows and OSX).