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Comment by ibejoeb

12 hours ago

> We've convinced multiple banks to permit GrapheneOS, and that's going to become MUCH easier now.

I did not know that. That is very interesting.

On that topic, an honest question: what is the killer feature of banking apps that everyone is so hot on? Are we talking like retail banking or money transmitters? I am not using any bespoke banking apps, and I don't feel like I'm missing out, but maybe I just don't know what I'm missing.

What does detract from my GrapheneOS experience is the keyboard. It's just ok. I need swipe typing though, and I haven't found anything even close to gboard glide.

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ibejoeb

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patrakov  12 hours ago

We are talking about banking and pseudo-banking apps with the following typical features:

* A wallet for QR-code based payments backed by a national standard for their content and by the money in your bank account;

* A software implementation of an NFC-enabled credit or debit card, or sometimes with a magnetic strip emulation in addition to that;

* An interface to transfer money to other bank accounts in the same country or abroad, or to convert between local and foreign currency if you have a foreign currency bank account;

* A way to pay common utility bills - in some cases, by scanning the QR code on the bill;

* A way to manage banking and investment accounts - e.g., if you want an extra savings account in Japanese yen with a new debit card attached to it, tap a few times and it's there;

* A chat with bank representatives - for example, to provide supporting documents by photographing them, without ever visiting the bank;

* A second factor (as in 2FA) to approve money transfers initiated from the desktop web browser, meeting the bank standards where TOTP can't meet them (e.g., due to the legal requirement to say what transaction the code is for).

The real problem is that many banks are deprecating their browser-based interfaces and are turning app-only.

  • Figs  10 hours ago

    > The real problem is that many banks are deprecating their browser-based interfaces and are turning app-only.

    What bank does that? If my bank did that, I would find a new bank immediately. That is not OK.

    • patrakov  5 hours ago

      Speaking about the Philippines here.

      First, how about Philippine National Bank? Compare snapshots of their front page, https://www.pnb.com.ph/, on web.archive.org, and see that they have completely removed the link to their Internet Banking system. Only Mobile Banking remains.

      See also https://web.archive.org/web/20220605084957/https://portal.pn...

      Also, Metrobank threatens to make it impossible to log into their online banking website without the mobile app installed. This is already officially the case for their corporate banking, but it's just TOTP with a non-extractable (on a non-rooted phone) seed and some anti-root checks under the hood.

      Finally, the following mobile wallets and "digital banks" are app-only: GCash, Maya, GoTyme Bank. The first two are the only ways to pay for water here, other than going to a kiosk where someone else would use their GCash account to process your payment.

infogulch  1 hour ago

The FUTO keyboard is pretty good. All offline, customizable design, good speech recognition, tolerable swipe typing. It's published under a distinct opensource-ish license if you care about that. It's technically a paid app but with an indefinite trial period and and a license checking scheme based on human trust (click the 'yes I bought it' button and it accepts). Worth $5 imo, I bought additional copies for friends and family too.

https://keyboard.futo.org/

https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard

NoboruWataya  11 hours ago

> On that topic, an honest question: what is the killer feature of banking apps that everyone is so hot on? Are we talking like retail banking or money transmitters? I am not using any bespoke banking apps, and I don't feel like I'm missing out, but maybe I just don't know what I'm missing.

For me, the killer "feature" is that I need to generate an auth code on my bank's app to be able to log in to my account and make transfers via my browser (or I can use the app directly). In other words, it's considerably more difficult to actually do (retail) banking without my bank's app.

  • ibejoeb  10 hours ago

    Got it. That makes more sense, i.e., that you're essentially required to use it rather than getting something in addition.

throwway120385  10 hours ago

My bank's killer feature is that they're app-first and web-first because they only have one physical branch in San Antonio. They were one of the first banks in the nation to allow you to electronically represent checks for deposit, and they did that first through their web app and then later through their mobile app.