Comment by sschueller
5 hours ago
That's Google's SafeNet. HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps.
We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies. If they decide they don't want to they can even if the law doesn't forbid it.
People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD. The US has started to sanction people for free speech resulting in de-banking.
Swiss law requires one bank (Postfinance) to offer banking irregardless but if you are sanctioned you can't use the wire system, no other currencies, no credit cards and you cant use Twint either so it's in effect useless. You can't pay for your health insurance or rent.
> and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD
What is this about? I'm a EU citizen, never heard about any EU citizen getting removed from any EU bank because of USD. Nor have I heard anyone being sanctioned by the US in the EU unless they're Russia-related somehow. Is there any link to a story about this?
People investigation Israel for war crimes tend to get sanctioned by the Americans. Because European banks don't have the necessary guardrails to block an individual account from participating in their American-facing banking operations, they have to choose between being sanctioned themselves or kicking out their America-sanctioned customers.
The real solution is for them to fix their shitty systems but I don't a handful of judges, lawyers, and human rights activists are important enough for them to make that investment.
Not to sound cynical, but what's to stop these officials from picking non-multinational regional bank?
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Judges and the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, for instance.
https://archive.is/DFHM6
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
There were some other sanctions involving visas, but as far as I understand that did not affect the individuals' ability to to bank: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/us-bans-visas-for-ex-eu-comm...
> as far as I understand that did not affect the individuals' ability to to bank
Did you read the article?
The judge reported closed/blocked bank accounts, booking being cancelled (successful booked, then later cancelled by the companies)...
https://verfassungsblog.de/sanctions-us-icc-united-states/
From a other poster:
> He cannot: open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company; make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it); conduct online commerce, since he can't know if the packaging is American; use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American); access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts; conduct virtually any financial transaction.
Same with recently Garry Kasparov been designated a "T" by Russia. Banks simply do not take risks dealing with hot customers, as this can affect their entire business (especially if they have branches in the US).
So they rather railroad individuals that have little power, then take the risk that they will lose millions if the US sanctions their bank. Its also linked to a lot of other things.
Somebody who worked at a bank gave a description yesterday on how it works. And if your on that list, you are really in a world of hurt.
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It's on HN front page right now https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
Unpaywalled link https://archive.is/20251203115217/https://www.lemonde.fr/en/...
Here’s one also currently on HN front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46432057
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n...
Yeah absolutely - I have an account with mBank in Poland and I got a letter from them saying that I need to declare if I'm a "tax person" in the US and if yes then unfortunately they will be forced to close my account as they would have to report all of my banking to some US insistution and that's not worth the hassle of having me as a client.
That doesn't sound like "the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure" at all, it sounds like EU banks or de-banking US residents/citizens, which is wildly different from the initial claim, or how I understood it at least. I thought EU residents/citizens were being cut off from EU banks.
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I am a dual citizen of Poland and USA and haven't had any problems using mBank so far. I even opened 2 foreign currency accounts (USD, EUR) there after they had been made aware of my newly obtained US citizenship. Not sure why you're having issues with them.
Wondering why. I have an account with PKO BP and never got asked that, and I've used it to do business with US individuals.
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-28/the-comp...
That sort of sanctioning is world-wide, isn't it? Not specifically targeting EU banks, but rather she's blacklisted from any bank in the world who follows those blacklisting lists, at least from what I understand it.
Parent's comment gave me the impression that this was something exclusive to EU (and Swiss) banks in particular, since they were mentioned by name.
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Scan the German press, there are several cases. Esp in the last weeks: Interesting is - it started with right-wing people getting de-banked, now left-wing people are following for what ever reason.
> unless they're Russia-related somehow
this is doing a lot of work. at what point person stops being Russia related in your view?
Having no ties to businesses or individuals located in Russia. Like myself and countless of others.
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Col Jacques Baud, (ret), is a Swiss citizen living in Brussels.
Former intelligence agent, worked also with NATO.
[0] https://www.defenddemocracy.press/eu-sanctions-swiss-intelli...
[1] https://youtu.be/VwNH3FLeZLA
Here's a German NGO that got debanked because of US pressure because they dare to be openly antifascist: https://rote-hilfe.de/meldungen/kontokuendigung-wegen-antifa...
At least in Switzerland banks can choose to not use Play Integrity, but they generally don't want to.
Yuh, which once was owned by both Postfinance and Swissquote, works without Play Integrity. Support for GrapheneOS is confirmed - see https://github.com/PrivSec-dev/banking-apps-compat-report/is...
The real issue is that most "legacy" banks have to comply with stupid regulations that force them to come up with these stupid solutions.
Banks are lazy and find the quickest way to comply with said regulations - simply by enabling Google Play Integrity.
About the whole US thingie - yes, that's true, and it's what happens if you get sanctioned. I'm pretty sure russians (and other people from sanctioned countries) have similar limitations elsewhere. In Switzerland US nationals have huge problems in opening accounts because of the whole bank secrecy law that allowed many americans to hide money from the IRS in Switzerland.
I use GrapheneOS in Switzerland and am yet to find a bank or financial app that doesn't work. ZKB, UBS, Cembra, BEKB, SGKB, WIR, N26, Revolut, debiX+, SaxoTrader, Swisscard, various TWINT apps, YAPEAL and Yuh are all installed on my phone right now and all work. Most of them don't use the Play Integrity API at all and the few that do are satisfied with the minimal level that's satisfied by GrapheneOS.
The catch is that you need Google Play Services installed and for many, you need to disable GrapheneOS' "Secure App Spawning" feature, which often trips root detection heuristics.
I know many Russians living here and when sanctions came in, their accounts became unable to receive deposits until they provided evidence of a valid residence permit. Some have problems during permit renewals as well but overall, it's nothing like as bad as it is for Americans.
SafeNet != SafetyNet nor Play Integrity?
I thought it was just a spelling mistake. Is there really a "SafeNet" by Google? I wouldn't be surprised they made it even more confusing
If they get enough complaints "the app doesn't work, please fix it or close my account" they'll fix it because they don't want to close more than a few accounts.
No, unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. At least from experience :(
> We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies
which companies? google? I'm the first to blame them for almost anything, but how about Postfinance, twint, health insurers, landlords, all those companies you mention? shouldn't they offer ways to do business with them that does not involve some third party? - for example, OP mentions that hsbc website still works for them on android, this is more than what can be said of other banks that basically removed certain "sensitive" features from their homepages. Or practically all the neobanks who 100% rely on apps.
Even those governments you mention: how hard/easy do they make for citizens to engage in commercial activity without relying on third parties or adversarial systems?
I know the argument used by all of them - companies, governments: we are just "following the rules enforced on us (as interpreted by our lawyers)".
Everyone goes to the "simplest" target - Google in this case - to blame for the status quo, but Google is in this position because everybody else - consumers, companies, governements, etc - buys into the "convenience" and neglect everything else.
I can't find anything about this in the API docs for neither the old SafetyNet nor its replacement (Play Integrity), can you show a source for this being related to SafetyNet? I'd like to see Kore details on this API and the apps it blocks.
> People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD
That's not quit accurate.
American citizens will indeed have a very hard time to open a bank account in Switzerland. But the reason is not so much free speech than FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) [0] [1]
The requirements to host bank accounts for Americans are so onerous that banks rather forgo business with such clients than having to deal with the legal mess it incurs.
Another reason for a bank not wanting to deal with customers are if they are on a sanctions list. People winding up on such lists usually don't do so, because they said something nasty about Mr. Trump.
This, alas, may change if you look who got sanctioned in recent times just for raising the ire of the president (such as EC commissioners or ICC judges).
[0] https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/tax-policy/foreign-a... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Account_Tax_Compliance...
> because they said something nasty about Mr. Trump
Well that's outrageous, I'm sure you've got a list of such people ready to tell us about it.
Still waiting
Any sovereign country can come up with whatever sanctions they want. The only reason the US ones have such broad reach particular in Europe is due to Europes hopeless reliance on US financial system, infrastructure and capital. Stop using eurodollar and us debt markets and sanctions would be much less impactful
> HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps
What is Google's rationale for flagging Bitwarden?
They flag "sideloading" - or anything installed by anything outside of their store.
They don't always flag it. Only when SafeNet is set to paranoid levels. However, sideloading is considered a risk for some reason. Even if sideloading is a synonym for "installing".
What if you install the app via adb install? That would flag all developers' phones so I'm almost sure it's not flagged.
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I can confirm that the Postfinance app doesn't work on graphene. I left some feedback and they said they're working on it so maybe there is hope. But as such I need to keep an old iphone around for banking apps.
Also being an American in Switzerland trying to do banking is eye opening. Local banks mostly tell you to pound sand when they find out you're American. Regardless of this or that administration, the US is really totalitarian when it comes to finance and taxes.
>The US has started to sanction people for free speech resulting in de-banking.
The sanctioned people were "hate-speech" fighters. Which is the most Orwellian branch of Brussels machinery. While it irks me on pure power level, you could hardly imagine people more deserving to be taken couple of pegs down.
>Swiss law requires one bank (Postfinance) to offer banking irregardless but if you are sanctioned you can't use the wire system, no other currencies, no credit cards and you cant use Twint either so it's in effect useless. You can't pay for your health insurance or rent.
What's funny is that this particular jurispudence was actually enforced due to a Russian oligarch (Vekselberg) on a C permit.
I am not sure regarding the rent and the health insurance, the health insurance especially as it is a legal requirement.
I'm 100% sure you can pay within Switzerland from your Postfinance account. I'd like to see some source for this...
It's more insidious than that. The US is actively working on dismantling the Swiss off-shore banking system. It started with US clients and expanded from there (see: https://www.privatebankerinternational.com/news/hsbc-swiss-p...)
Guess where all these un-banked HNWI are going and who is offering them a gold card to run their businesses from?
No idea, where will they go?
Dismantling off-shore banking is generally a good thing since I'd like the ultra rich to pay tax as that funds services that I use.
> No idea, where will they go?
Most likely, the US.
> Dismantling off-shore banking is generally a good thing since I'd like the ultra rich to pay tax as that funds services that I use.
There are lots of uses to off-shore banking than tax-evasion. In fact, I don't think it's feasible to use any modern (CRS/FATCA compliant) banking for tax-evasion.
Do you think US pressure is behind the push for online censorship across the West? It seems to be a coordinated effort in many countries, whatever it is.
The US doesn't need to pressure other nations to apply online censorship, because Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Twitch, Google and Apple app stores, Steam and suchlike are all American, and censored in line with American norms.
Concerning an apparent coordinated effort it might be more complicated than that. The EU and Australia have always been on the verge of sweeping censorship. Look up "Zensursula" [1][2] and the censorship list that was about to be introduced in 2008 and that, for legal reasons, was illegal to even be looked at by journalists. Back then there was significant public backlash and also indirect cristicism by the US government [3].
Today there is no such criticism from the US because censorship is something that is also of an interest to the christian backers of the current government.
When the cat is out of the house, the mice dance on your dinner table.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zugangserschwerungsgesetz
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral...
3: https://web.archive.org/web/20100123181634/http://www.abc.ne...
Of course it is. Trump is actively trying to censor LGBTQ events and DEI at European companies, they will get blacklisted from selling anything to the US federal government.
An Italian citizen who was debanked essentially because Trump didn't like her:
https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-28/the-comp...
When it comes to this kind of thing, an injury to one is an injury to all and we need to not tolerate it. At minimum, we need regulations guaranteeing that Visa and MasterCard, as well as participating banks, aren't allowed to debank anyone without judicial oversight. Make the same true of apps: call it a Banking Access Tribunal.
> because Trump didn't like her
Such dishonest mis-characterization.
She's a UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine talking and writing about Israel-Palestine war in such a biased way that many, including me and US State Department led by Rubio, consider her a mouthpiece of Hamas. The system is what system does and person is what a person does.
You might agree or disagree about her de-facto supporting Hamas, or if US State Department (i.e. Marc Rubio) should sanction her for what she does but it's so dishonest to claim that it has anything to do with Trump.
So Trump can support war criminals like Netanyahu, but when someone says Israel shouldn't colonize Palestine and practice appartheid, she becomes a mouthpiece of Hamas? Get your facts together.
It's fair to assign the blame for actions of the executive branch of the US government to Trump while he holds the office of president. The policy of sanctioning people for being too critical of Israel required his assent whether or not he made the call to apply it in this case or delegated that to a subordinate.
Especially problematic is that her actions would be unambiguously protected speech under US law if she did them in the USA.
> that it has anything to do with Trump
That's an irrelevant detail right? The point is, she was debanked because someone in the US didn't like her, regardless of whom this person is.
Condemning the 7/Oct attacks as an unacceptable act of terrorism is "being a mouthpiece of Hamas"!!! Fucking _disgusting_, and many stronger words I'm trying my best to contain.
We're reaching levels of wretchedness that I've never thought possible. Truly no shame anymore.
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It doesn't. I don't know if she's an antisemite, but unless the bank dumps her for being one and an Italian judge agrees that they're allowed to for that reason, this is a clear result of foreign political influence.
Calling the UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories a "vile antisemite" sounds a lot like trolling, though.
First of all you need to provide some proof because being against a genocide is not antisemitic. Hating Israel is not antisemitic even if Bibi wants you to believe that.
Second of all, what happened to free speech? In fact I can list several actual antisemites currently operating freely in the US political discourse who are gathering larger and larger audiences. Why aren't they being sanctioned?
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Maybe this will help you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came
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Wait until it’s you for some arbitrary reason.
Irrelevant. I'd prefer laws and the courts to decide punishment for transgressions, rather than the arbitrary whims of a quasi-fascist. I'm old fashioned, I know.
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To play devil's advocate for a moment, could this not be a risk?
Is Google implementing a rule which blockes any 3rd party app which wants access to things like the keystore (which could be reasonable), or are they deliberately blocking Bitwarden?
Yes it does. But my device, my choice. If I put my cash the under my mattress instead of a safe that is my dumb decision.
> But my device, my choice
Given there is a choice, and given HSBC is on the hook if you get hacked in most jurisdictions, it seems fair to chalk this one up as a stupid move by HSBC that's nevertheless within their rights.
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Here on HN I will be downvoted to oblivion but well... let's be it:
There is no other way for us mortals than to go back to cash... Or start using Bitcoin. Be your own bank. Vote with your money.
Yes you might, because Bitcoin doesn't solve anything correctly (notably, its value is so volatile it can't be relied upon), while consuming an absurd amount of energy.
By design, it made its first users stupidly rich, which is not a good characteristic.
More importantly, it's a technical solution for a societal issue (aka, it's not at all a solution).
"sanction people for free speech"
Not sure how this is the top post on this thread, no links nothing but misinformation and FUD.
What happens in Switzerland to non US citizens is not a free speech issue no matter how you want to twist it.