Mobile app banking Vs Desktop online banking

stphnstevey

I have considered the above for some time, but remain with desktop online banking (DOB). It seems there is far more security questions to log on for DOB than mobile. I also wonder about someone getting there hands on my phone easier than my laptop, as the phone always goes with me when I leave the house, but my laptop does not

RumRat

Personally, I haven't been anywhere near a physical bank for years and have not had a cheque book for as long.
I don't even carry a bank card these days, everything is done by my phone or ring connected to a card. If you lose your phone you can remotely wipe it to make sure nothing is used, even if they managed to break your phones encryption.
Mobile banking is generally thought to be even safer than online banking. Some banks are even more secure than others with the new online banks probably offering the best way to go, making the major banks playing catch up, but they are. You don't say which bank you are with.
Give it a go....You can always change your mind, but, I doubt you will.

debitcardmayhem

Yeah tell me , my bank when I try to log in on my desktop/laptop it says authorise with the mobile app, well if I wanted to go downstairs/upstairs twice to print my statement ok , I can't print/download from my mobile, my mobile flat what now. At least my mobile will let me log in with my fingerprint but of course if someone hacks off my hand whilst holding my phone I am literally in the deep doodoo . I remember the bank said you must use (c)Rapport yeah ok but I said but it doesn't bluddy work on linux.

RumRat

Personally, I can't see any need for printed statements in this day and age. They used to just build up in a draw and get dumped every few months...
Not to mention the Planet thing.....

J_B

Always use the mobile apps now - so much easier than multiple entries on the laptop!

A_Lert

As I understand it the phone app can verify each time it's on a specific phone, the website can't do that, which is why the website needs to ask more questions.

Personally I prefer using a website on a computer. My current smartphone's old, I don't want my banking apps on a phone that's not getting security updates, and I'm not sure if all the apps would work on it anyway.

debitcardmayhem

RumRat said:

Personally, I can't see any need for printed statements in this day and age. They used to just build up in a draw and get dumped every few months...
Not to mention the Planet thing.....

It was a figurative print thing, I want to d/l the CSV, massage into a budget spreadsheet, scratch my head a bit and then spend more than I think I can afford, or perhaps think how did we get in this mess

KxMx

I use HSBC's app (on tablet which never leaves my house) more than online banking, but retain the physical secure key. 
Given the app had over 2 days outage recently I made the right call, people relying on the digital secure key were in effect locked out, limited to telephone banking and what an atm could say, which wasn't much as it happened over a weekend so very limited HSBC branch ATM's which give the most details.
I however could still use online banking. 

CoastingHatbox

Inevitabley, there isn't such a straight forward answer such as 'the mobile app is more secure' or 'a desktop computer is more secure'. It depends on a number of factors.

1/ Is your laptop/desktop's hard disk drive or mobile phone storage encrypted

2/ The browser hygiene you employ

3/ The operating system on your mobile phone and whether updates are still available for it

4/ The operating system on your desktop

5/ The browser you use and the browser plugins you have enabled

6/ The other apps you have installed on your computer/phone (especially the memory resident ones)

7/ The security of the network you are connected to

8/ Your individual risk profile and personal attitude to security and privacy

etc..


My personal approach iI trust the operating system and the configuration of my computers much more so than my phone. When I visit my banks website and login, I'll use a freshly started browser with a minimal set of plugins that is configured not to persist any data once the browser is closed. I'll use randomly generated passwords (40 characters, or a long as possible) and random generated values as answers to security questions.

The trouble with a phone is that it is too easily misplaced/lost/stolen. I don't want to secure it with a finger print on account I can change a pin or a password, but I can't change my finger prints. I use a relatively short pin code on the phone, for the convenience of unlocking it. I also think my phone makes to much information available to apps that I install - so I don't think it is great for privacy. And I'm not a fan of each bank rolling its own authenticator app - these should be open source and subject to security audits so that any potential exploits come out into the open and subsequently get fixed.

In fact, this is my general issue in general with proprietary software - the source code is private and you have to put your trust into the developers in terms of how they secure the app and your data which is either accessable via or available to the app. Open source software is developed publicly so anyone can inspect that codebase and I think this intrinsically encourages developers to write software to higher standards. Widely used open source software does get audited so that security bugs are identified and fixed.

On my personal mobile I run LineageOS without any Google services or the Google play store. I use the F-Droid store so that the only apps I run on my phone are free and open source. So at present, none of the major banks have apps available via the F-Droid store, so even if I wanted to do mobile banking, that would rule me out.

From a security and a privacy perspective, I can't imagine anything worse than relying on my phone to make payments.

[Deleted User]

Nothing is 100% secured. Love mobile banking and love paying for things with my phone. Quick and convenient way for accessing and using my money. 

I don’t worry about things that I have no real knowledge on and instead trust the individual or company that has more experience in those matters to make the decisions on my behalf. Currently 20 years with my bank and 11 years with same phone manufacturer and no issues with my money being stolen or my identity.

 If the day comes they screw up then I will revaluate that relationship. 

jsmith9

If you you use a Samsung smartphone (for example the Galaxy S9 S10 etc) then enable the secure folder and secure that with a pin and install your banking app within the secure folder

That will give Knox protection to the app and make it extremely secure - even if someone gets into your phone they will be unable to get into the secure folder

In any case in general a banking app on a phone is much more secure than logging on via a browser on an insecure device such as a browser on a Windows desktop