Eventually though I suspect that web access to banks will be rescinded too, much like HMRC in the UK no longer permits companies to submit their taxes through the websites.
Don't like that. I'm of the "if you're going to do something important, do it on your PC" generation. I do not want a future where I lose my phone and I can no longer access my bank.
They won't find a solution to your problem, when one is obvious: buy a phone.
They'll find a solution to their problem, which is you: apologize for losing you as a customer, and express a hope that you'll consider them again after you've bought a phone.
There can be laws like the right to have a bank account, that might say your bank can't require you to have anything they don't provide you with for free. In some places.
We need to act now, while there are still service providers that don't require a phone. If my bank said they wouldn't do business with me unless I used a phone and an app, I would immediately take my business and all my accounts to a different bank. Banks have no moat. You can pretty easily move accounts to a different one or to a credit union who won't abuse you.
With HMRC, the reasoning is that this forces the company to have an accounting package. They don't care which, they just define the API. Not unreasonable. There are more issues with MTD IT (making tax digital, income tax) due to some detailed requirement decisions such as the need to report different income streams separately.
That seems to be the way the wind is blowing. Most new 'challengers' I've tried in the US either have no web access at all, or limited access that lets you view balance but not do things like transfers.
In the US, in my experience, young people don't want to deal with cash at all. Older people do, but it's not always convenient to meet up.
Most banks charge a fee for sending a wire. Sending an ACH is free, but most restrict that to your own account. Revolut is the only one I've seen that lets you just spam ACH to anyone. In both cases, it isn't instant.
Zelle largely fixes those issues, but has its own issues, like a lot of banks not supporting it and/or arbitrarily low send limits.
I don't understand either. My contact surface with my bank is so small. I log in once a month to download transactions. What is everyone doing that they need constant immediate access on their phones? I'd probably debank before buying a special iPhone to access a bank account.
Let me give you a preview of a world coming to you, and present day reality in Ireland:
1. Your employer pays your salary by bank transfer, which requires you to have a conventional bank account.
2. You then want to spend that money, how do you do that?
Debit card? You need the phone app to retrieve the PIN when the bank first sends you the card.
Cash withdrawals in the branch? For amounts less than €10,000, the staff will direct you to the ATMs in the branch. These require an activated debit card to withdraw money, and activating that card requires the phone app.
Manual money transfers in the branch? Once again, for amounts less than €10,000, the staff won't do it - they'll instead direct you to the PCs in the branch. These are just loading the same website you can access on yours, which will ask you to the confirm with a 2FA push notification to log in.
Try another bank? The legacy banks all got the same auditor who advised them that app based 2FA is the easiest way to implement PSD2, and reduce the likelihood they get held liable when customers get scammed, so they all implemented that as the only option. The neobanks of course, are accessed solely by apps.
I long ago decided never again to use anything but a credit union, and this makes me glad that credit unions tend not to ride the forefront of tech trends.
Would make a lot of sense for banks just to shut off online/mobile access and switch to in person only. That seems to be the way things are moving with KYC/AML and ensuring there is a material presence of the person in the banking jurisdiction in which they operate. Knowing the password / keys and providing a video 'proof of life' is no longer sufficient to presume you're dealing with the person you think you are and not just sold 'darks'.
I've heard 3rd hand of some banks already doing this in i.e. Armenia where a foreigner can come in and open account easily but they block any online access to lock the control of funds in country to make it harder for the FATF psychopaths to find fodder to clamp down on them.
It's already reality in my country, where you cannot access online banking for any banks except via their mobile applications, which (of course) refuse to work on anything rooted or running non-stock firmware.
Let me clarify my statement: one government agency’s election to use an app for a single purpose isn’t an indicator of much.
It’s not like the UK sent out a mandate to private banks or any other private industry on this issue. It’s also only one small country of hundreds.
I’d have to question this idea that this is how things “already look.” I can think of very few businesses that I interact with that force me to use an app.
This type of election to use an app by a government agency sets the tone, and more importantly tends to redefine "best practices." Would you want to be the one private entity known to not be using best practices? Would your risk officers or lawyers be OK with that decision?