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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

Most banks here in Europe require Mobile apps to login into their website.

So the EU attempts to invade your privacy using smartphones [1] and forces duopoly-brand smartphones upon its citizens, yet it fails to compel Apple to allow true sideloading, so you're stuck choosing between "no freedom but some privacy" or "no privacy but some freedom"? Their digital policy initiatives overall seem like a net loss for EU citizens as it stands.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/19/24181214/eu-chat-control

The EU as a whole is a net loss for citizens, always has been.

You really had to stretch a lot of bullshit just to rant over chat control here, didn't you?

The point is that we're being forced into a duopoly, which is unacceptable.

I was trying to make a case that when you add up everything the EU has done recently with regards to digital policy, you get a net loss for EU citizens. Their attempt at chat control decrements the score by a significant amount. Amending the DMA to have it not be completely useless would increment it by a significant amount, but it is unknown if that will happen yet.

As far as I have evidence, that is not true in Germany. I have accounts with three banks, and all of them can be managed with SMS 2FA and web access.

The SMS 2FA is mostly being phased out because it's horribly insecure :/

And many banks stopped providing hardware tokens as well because it's too expensive.

They don't offer hardware tokens by default. Often you can request one (you will be charged). I did just that despite it not being advertised option. I just said I need one.

But that's probably mostly because Germany is generally so far behind the rest of Western Europe in modern Internet and online usage, isn't it?

If you bank requires it, you can: a) find different bank that doesn't; there are banks like this b) demand a hardware token

Unless you explicitly sign for Mobile-only bank (neobanks are weird) you will be able to get hardware token.

Speaking from German, UK and Polish experience.

I think all banks in my country as well provide hardware token method (used to be paper cards, nowadays a small Tamagotchi like device that outputs codes) if you don't want to use a phone app.

Yeah, while they certainly try to push it, I don t know about any Czech bank that would force you to use a mobile app.

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