this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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Just use a web browser.
People act like they can't live without these apps, which are often just a repackaged website anyway.
My bank requires using a card reader for ID if you use a web browser. It can be done but it means carrying three physical things (phone, bank card, bank card reader) instead of one (phone).
So it is a minor inconvenience?
Also it would be an option to switch banks.
My point is that there is an actual difference. It's not just a repackaged web app, and has actual drawbacks.
My personal plan is to move as much of my day to day stuff to a Mecha Comet, and also carry my Fairphone running Android for whatever proprietary crap that the world wants me to run. It's two devices, but hopefully will minimize exposure to big tech.
Nice idea in theory . . . but here in the UK, increasingly customers are being left with little other choice. Between banking apps using push messages to verify credit/debit card transactions, closing of physical branches and requiring authentication via the app to log into the website . . . not using their app is becoming more and more difficult every day.
pushTAN?
I would use banking through the browser for sure, but to be able to login on the browser i can only receive the pin through the app. not only this ,but everytime i make a purchase online I have to authorize the transaction through the app. There is no other way, they don't even offer a physical token anymore.
Sounds like it's time to find a new bank then.
If you don't mind disclosing, what bank is that?
It's the Romanian Commercial Bank founded to take over the commercial banking operations of the National Bank of Romania in 1990.