[Freak_NL]

> I have never heard of a bank that has a hard requirement of a mobile app.

It shouldn't be a thing, but it is. In the Netherlands the newer digital-only banks are allowed to do this. No smartphone, no service.

The more established banks (systeembanken) do have alternatives, but realistically not using their app for login auth and transaction approval is a huge pain in the ass.

(My bank, ABN AMRO, has an app which thankfully works fine on GrapheneOS.)

[superkuh]

That sounds like it's a hard requirement for checking your bank balance/etc over the internet. Can't you just not do that and phone them up or go in person or read the monthly sent paper balances? Or just keep track yourself... A bank without a physical location is something I'd steer well clear of.

I barely use my bank's website and could easily not use it at all and still have all the functionality that a bank provides.

[Freak_NL]

Paper balances and visiting your local branch are mostly a thing of the past. Calling them is an exercise in extreme patience. My bank all but discontinued actually visiting them except for certain specific things.

In the Netherlands (and beyond) online payments (shops, Steam, etc.) are made via the IDEAL platform run by the Dutch banks collectively. That is a good thing, because payments are secure and easy, and no one needs a credit card. But that does mean using your bank's web service to approve those payments.

Using the bank's offline OTP hardware (where you insert your debit card and enter a PIN and the code generated by the bank's website for an OTP) is possible, but using the app is significantly less effort than that. There is very little point in resisting it. It's not a healthy situation, but it is the reality.

[lrvick]

The point in resisting it is to waste their valuable time on whatever the worst appless methods are, so they are forced to improve the efficiency to keep profits high if enough people do it.

If you install the app then you are complicit in normalizing the requirement of signing terms of service and data sharing agreements to US technology companies in order to do banking.

Be the person that demands better. Be the squeaky wheel. Call politicians and press if needed. Stop this shit now before it becomes expected for school and healthcare too.

[Freak_NL]

There are only so many things you can actively fight. I can choose to actively pursue a number of topics and be the annoying squeaky wheel there, but not everything. This is one topic I cannot invest more time in, and which won't yield any significant returns even if I did. There are a number of topics where my voice can still make a difference, I focus on those.