This should be illegal that the government forces people into apps controlled by private, commercial entities. I call such a government corrupt.

Here in central Europe I can still access the bank website fine without smartphone. I need a physical device to yield a TAN though, but I can access and do online transactions fine. So I think something is wrong with the spanish government. People need to protest.

> Not in Spain. I can access my bank's website but I can't do anything without their bank app.

I don't know about Spain specifically, but as far as I understand it no bank in the European Economic Area + UK should allow banking via just the website alone anymore, because of the "Revised Payment Services Directive" (PSD2) regulation.

Essentially, banks are required to implement "strong customer authentication", which in essence is just multi-factor authentication with a password + either biometrics or a security device of some sort.

And in practise that means a banking app, because most people do not want a separate token they have to buy and can lose. Though a lot of banks do offer those as well.

I don't know which banks you are using but in my case I work with five Spanish banks and I can do everything from their websites, no app required. Yes, they try to push you to use their app, some tried to activate mobile 2fa for me when this psd2 thing became mandatory but I always told them their app doesn't work on my phone (which is true) and they offered me alternate methods like sms.

> Not in Spain. I can access my bank's website but I can't do anything without their bank app. Even sometimes they require to confirm my identity using their app in order to access their website.

https://triodos.es has 2FA via SMS, for what is worth.

I have been using GrapheneOS for a few months in Spain with and out of three banking apps only one gave me trouble, I had to enable "Exploit Protection Compatibility Mode" on "app information". Personally I refuse to pay with the phone so I am okay not having that option.

If someone wants to try Graphene os maybe that option will work on their banks too.

Not in Spain. I can access my bank's website but I can't do anything without their bank app. Even sometimes they require to confirm my identity using their app in order to access their website.

I've seen this elsewhere, and it's absolutely ridiculous.

Why?

Because in almost all cases, the apps may only be installed with Google Play, and require the framework to work correctly. And that means?

If you are not in good standing with Google, you cannot bank!!

I cannot stress how inane it is, to have Google or Apple as the gatekeeping to identify verification. How not having an active, in good standing account with one of these two, means you cannot bank.

And it's happening more and more.

Meanwhile, banks -- which tend to make billions in profits quarterly, do this to save on infrastructure costs. They do it so they don't have to stand up their own push servers, or have an app which doesn't require firebase.

Well cry me a river, boo-hoo Mr Banker, I'm not even remotely interested in you saving on infra-structure costs at the loss of autonomy. And on top of this, many banks are reducing hours, closing branches, claiming that they don't need them.

Leaving absolutely no other choice.

This sort of thing should be illegal. Being in Spain, but requiring a US megacorp to tell your own bank, that you're you.

Similar in Canada.

- RBC 2FA is that if I try to login through my browser, the phone app will ask if I authorize the login. I think I can disable this and use sms/call, but that's even more insecure, so I don't.

- TD lets me login fine and do everything in the browser. But any online transaction that is moderately large or presumably fishy, will force me to authorize the transaction via the app.

These are among the largest banks in Canada.