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Banking apps are spyware, that's why they avoid open source OSes, not because they want to vendor-lock you. Smartphone data collected by a banking app is basically the most valuable in the world for advertisers, as they get the telemetry instantly crossed with a full(ish) picture of your spending habits and all the KYC identifiers too.

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No, the reason is legal. Everything, and I mean everything else is secondary. They can tell in court that they did everything what they could. Of course:

- it’s a lie

- not even a white lie, they know perfectly well, that they can do way more

- most of the security “features” are completely useless

- they also know this

However, it’s very difficult to prove these, and laymen don’t and won’t understand the details.

And if any law ever goes after them it'll be years before any court charges them with anything.

By that time the amount of money that will have been made can justify and exceed whatever fine they might expect to get in court.

Is there a link that explains this for bank apps specifically?

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