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.
I think we need to keep pestering banks to share their apps either themselves or on repositories other than Google Play Store. After all we are their customers the least they can do is listen to us. It will take time to break some of these dependencies built up over the last decade but I think with a growing awareness of Google’s misuse of user data, businesses will move in this direction - though it will be a gradual process.
hi all, i also think it is a good idea that we keep asking banks for this, all of us. With enough requests from users they will implement it, eventually. @andrelam , could you expand about what you meant with that banks have to host their apps themselves, with chechsum? It would be good if, in our contacting of banks, we could add a consistent message for a good alternative for them. THeir technical departments might respond to that.
Hey Rik,
What i mean by banks have to host the app themselves, is something like this, a place on their server where you can download the apk. You can check the https url and you will know it is the original apk from the bank. If they also provide a checksum you can check if the file is original with no modification (if you change 1 bit in a file, the checksum will be complete different).
great, is there an app that consumers can use to check the checksum easily (to make it “mom and dad-proof” ?
I’ve been denied numerous times now, going to run out of banks soon haha Most recent response was:
“We leverage certain Google Services to improve the quality and stability of our digital products. Analytics, Cloud Messaging, Crash Reporting and A/B Testing are all tools that we use in delivering a great experience.”
This was after I suggested if they really must need to capture some analytics then use ACRA…
I even get similar responses from cryptocurrency wallet app developers which you would assume being the nature of cryptocurrency would respect user privacy… another example below after i contacted them after their app would not even launch without play services…
"Thank you for your patience.
Upon checking with the team, you will not be able to use the app without having the Play Store on your mobile device. The app should be downloaded from it and updated to the latest version."
In summary I feel like these developers are just lazy employees piggy backing off goolags services just to make it easy for their pay cheque and not caring about their end users. This is why I think we are not going to have much luck with big financial institutions without the masses protesting this.
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Well, let’s start an /e/ bank :). Problem solved 
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“/e/ coin” 
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Bonsoir @denux,
je suis moi aussi client du crédit mutuel et je viens d’installer /e/ sur mon Samsung S7. Pourriez-vous me dire comment vous avez trouvé l’application dans le store ? J’ai beau essayer toutes les orthographes possible mais sans succès. 
D’avance merci.
Bonjour @Remi,
en effet l’appli android du crédit mutuel n’est disponible que sur le sur google play à ma connaissance. je ne l’ai pas trouvée non plus sur Apkpure c’est pourquoi j’ai utilisé Raccoon depuis un ordinateur sous linux, mais Raccoon fonctionne aussi sous Windows ou MacOs. C’est une application en java. Malheureusement j’ai du créer un compte google pour que Raccoon puisse se connecter. mais au moins ce compte ne sert jamais et reste confiné à l’application Raccoon. L’application que vous cherchez s’appelle “Crédit Mutuel”, à ne pas confondre avec " Crédit Mutuel Mobile" qui est dédiée à la gestion du téléphone (je n’ai pas installé cette appli). L’archive de l’appli Crédit Mutuel se nomme “com.cm_prod.bad-2001312496.apk”. Le chiffres changent en fonction de la version. Ici: version 7.12.0). Depuis j’ai renoncé à l’utiliser car je pense que les services SafetyNet de Google ne peuvent être utilisés sur /e/. En tout cas pas " out of the box". En attendant le Crédit Mutuel m’envoie un SMS pour réaliser la double authentification.
En espérant avoir répondu à votre question,
cordialement,
denux.
Bonjour @denux,
Merci pour l’info,
étant nouveau dans les ROM custom, je ne connaissais pas Raccoon. Après installation, j’ai bien pu installer l’application crédit mutuel. Tout semble bien fonctionner.
Bonne fin de journée.
EDIT: J’ai finalement réussi à faire fonctionner l’appli du Crédit Mutuel sur mon /e/phone Samsung S9+ acheté à la e.foundation. J’ai suivi les conseils donnés dans cette discussion et j’ai tout simplement composé ce code sur le dialer du téléphone:
*#*#2432546#*#*
et tout est miraculeusement rentré dans l’ordre!
Bonne journée à tous
CC: @Remi
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Hi there,
just a recent experience: I just run into the same problem described in this discussion. For online banking with a german bank (‘Flessabank’) they require the installation of the so-called SecureGo App which is only available in the Google and Apple stores - with registration of course.
Banks are always emphasizing their repute and the importance of data protection, and at the same time they turn over their customers to the worlds’ largest data collectors.
Let’s hope this will change soon.
have you tried getting the SecureGo app via the Aurora store?
Thanks for the hint.
But: Aurora Store requires a Login, the anonymous login failed first but succeeded after an update of the Aurora Store. Aurora Store always stops/crashes when ‘Building GooglePlay API’. The connection seems to fail.
F-Droid does not have this SecureGo App.
Hi @alhein download Aurora Store from Fdroid…the version number should be 3.1.8 .
Set up this version with an anonymous login. This version when run each time will show the initial screen with a message ‘Failed to build API, retrying’ then the apps will be fetched and displayed.
yes i 2nd this post by Manoj. It’s important you download Aurora store from Fdroid and NOT from the /e/ app store. The version there is older and does not work.