A lot of the alternatives aren't much better. Fidelity for example would allow you to input your password as the numerical equivalent (think phone keypad - A, B or C map to "1" and so on). Which basically requires modifying your password before hashing it (and dramatically reducing entropy in the process).

I'm not sure if they still do this.

http://mattstockton.com/2013/03/20/my-bank-password-is-sort-...

I think I recall Vanguard having had something similar but I can't find it in searching, so perhaps not.