Email your bank to start accepting /e/!

Most Dutch Bank apps have been requested months and months ago and still not a single 1 is in the apps store…

Hi @Eelo these apps that you requested are they available on FDroid

@GaelDuval @Manoj I remember we talked about this on Telegram, i thougt Gaël explained the reason for not adding them was banks don’t allow this right?

Many banks have tied up their apps with Google user authentication. Accepting a different means of identifying users will mean updating their apps and systems…

Some dutch bank apps work without gmail authentication, but are still not in /e/ Apps. This is because banks don’t legally allow this according the conversation in July. Don’t know if that is still the /e/ point of view? I think it’s importand to be clear about this.

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Some banks do not allow to publish their apps outside the Google store. This is the reason that they are not in the /e/ Apps store.

it would be useful to have a list of these apps: A) the ones that do not work besides google play services, B) those that DO work, but that are not allowed to be published outside the google play store. For B the problem is easily solved, by us sending emails to our banks. So if we have a list of those, we could email the banks to request it!

“There are about 4,700 banks in the eurozone countries. In the (still) 28 EU member states plus the EFTA countries (European Free Trade Association) there are about 6,600 banks. And how many banks worldwide - no idea.” … more …

wow i had no idea about this
haha well ok only of the big banks then :slight_smile:

Hi @Rik a better and practical option would be to ask the bank you have an account with to switch to /e/ or allow other repositories as well

Ha,ha @Manoj. Well, the banks will probably say in a request: Who is /e/ ? Why should we change a working system (Apple, G°°gle)? We have enough work with Bitcoin, Libra and other crypto currencies or something like that.

I had a discussion with Bunq bank. I asked if it was allowed to put the apk in 3rd party store. Their answer was no, this is not safe. Then i asked, well then publish apk on your website, this was also considered unsafe. My argument was, this is very paradoxical because if people can’t download the apk, they go searching on the net, and then it becomes really unsafe. Last i asked how /e/ users can dowload their app, answer was from play store, i’d just explained there is no play store on eOS. Very annoying, you get to deal with helpdesk people who lack deep knowledge. I also asked to speak to someone from the security department, no reply. So Bunq is the bank of the NOT so free.

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Thanks for discussing this with a Bank. If banks laugh and say ‘what is /e/?’ well that was the whole point of this thread …to get Banks to accept /e/ or other similar repositories. Good to know that you actually tried to have a discussion with them.

I have had identical experiences with Consorsbank BNP Paribas S.A. German Office and Consbank and DKB (German Credit Bank AG). The so-called support answers in a standardized way and does not want to know anything about custom ROMs. The so-called support answers in a standardized way and does not want to know anything about custom ROMs. The criticism of many users bounces off unheard.

Maybe we make an eOS unfriendly bank topic here :grinning:

If all /e/ users describe their negative experiences with banks here, the thread will burst at the seams ;-/

That is ok . It is not /e/ unfriendly it is a ‘trust’ that institutions across the world have on Google Play store. They do not want to change but unfortunately they would have to change soon. We have seen a number of really big players in the world of business who have approached us to get a non- google solution for their digital platforms. I am assuming they would be discussing ways and means to get out of Google’s stranglehold with others as well. We should be seeing some interesting innovations this year. Most of it is under early stages of development :slight_smile:

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Well, I can understand that a bank is cautious that there are no manipulated bank APKs in circulation. I just wonder how they will deal with Huawei. Did you check if the Bunq app is by any coincidence available in Huaweis App Gallery?

I fully agree, but there is another perspective to be kept in mind. Since a few years, banks are challenged enormously by the digitalisation in general and regulations such as the PSD2, the latest European Payment Directive in particular. This stuff is super complex and super costly. There are a lot of implementations they do not necessarily want but banks are obliged to comply with. On the other hand, banks are confronted with fraud - that’s probably costly too.
From a banks’ point of view it makes sense to distribute their apps only though recognized distribution channels. They have no interest in experimenting on that side ------ unless a notable number of customers is calling for change (maybe users of a tiny mobile OS that is even not yet published may not count in this respect).
Maybe, if an important player in the market - such as Huawei with its new app store - is calling, that could work out. Of course, this ain’t satisfy the needs of privacy concerned users…
What I could rather imagine is that banks are getting self organised - for instance in a way that they set-up a thematic app store for banking apps themselves. If such a banking repository could be integrated into F-Droid (and ideally later on into AppsStore as well) as alternative repository that could be a very starting point for the users and could probably comply with with the security needs of banks.
So, in this case we may find a bank who could be interested in starting that or we raise the interest of a group of banks. But all that is probalby well beyond /e/.

That’s exactly why they have to host the app themselves, with checksum. Now people get it somewhere from the net. I did get it from Aurora, but that’s not the point. Not hosting your App as a bank and think now all is save is just ignorant.