| While I have a smartphone, I choose to not have a Google account. One of the banks that I am using has terminated its on-line banking service, which I had been using for almost 20 years, replacing it with an app. That would not have been a problem if they would have provided the app themselves on their Web site, but they refuse to do this and they provide the app only in the Google on-line store, which I cannot use because I do not have a Google account, despite the fact that the app is free. Therefore I have reduced a lot the number of operations that I do through that bank, redirecting them to another bank, which still has on-line banking on their Web site. Fortunately, for now the bank that has closed their on-line banking Web site still keeps an SMS service, which allows me e.g. to check the balance of my account from my phone and which notifies me about the transactions on my credit card. Many years ago, I have closed all my accounts at a bank that has annoyed me by updating their on-line banking Web site so that it no longer accepted any browsers except Microsoft Internet Explorer. At that time I have hoped that it will be the last time when I leave a bank because they believe that they can force their customers to also be customers of unrelated third parties, but now this problem with Google has appeared. I am not a US citizen and the bank is not from USA. I doubt that it can be legal for a bank here in Europe to condition their services by their customer becoming the customer of a foreign entity that is Google. However I cannot afford to waste time and money to determine the legality of their actions. |