Push towards banking apps

Zanderman

booneruk said:

Zanderman said:

I run, for different people in 2 locations, five PCs, some over 10 years old now, and I can access all banks (apart from the app only ones), with no trouble on all of those

I hope all those PCs are on Windows 10 at least, as anything below is no longer supported and will not be getting future security updates - which are essential if you're banking on your PC. Windows 10 will be supported for another few years it seems, but after that your 14+year old PC may become a dangerous thing to bank on if they can't be upgraded to Windows 11.

With banking apps, you are forced to run a relatively up to date, supported and therefore safer device/environment.

Thanks for that advice. I'm very well aware of these issues (not sure why you'd think I might not be!) thank you!  You might have worked that out when I said (in the same paragraph as the one you partially quote) 

Those PCs will need replacing in due course, especially if we want Win11 (though I might switch some over to Linux), but their replacements will last 10+ years too.

And re the apps, that was the partly the point I was making - the point being that updated apps need new handsets more frequently than updated pc software needs new pcs. 

Zanderman

Band7 said:

Zanderman said:

     My current one will run most but not all banking apps.  It's only 3 years old, but already can't run some.

Which banking app other than Chase perhaps doesn’t run on your phone? What model is your phone, what OS does it run? How much RAM?

I have 56 financial apps, incl those from all UK current account providers, installed on my 256GB iPhone 12, which I keep on the latest OS level. OK, this phone isn’t quite 3 years old but I can run also all those apps(*) happily on a relatively ancient 6-year old  iPad, again with 256MB, and which I can still keep on the latest OS level.

I like to change my phone to a more current model every 2-3 years - but that’s for reasons other than the banking apps. Battery life is probably a more important reason than anything else because some of my non-banking apps are incredibly battery-intensive.


* not all of them concurrently on iPhone and iPad due to security limitations imposed by some of the apps

Great, I'm glad you're happy to change your phone every 2 to 3 years for reasons unrelated to banking apps. 

Many people are not though.  And so may  lose - or not have at present - access to some banking apps.

You're obviously not one of them - but that doesn't alter the basic premise (it's a simple enough situation to understand).

subjecttocontract

I don't feel I'm missing out on anything at the moment by avoiding buying a new phone/using apps. I can open & manage all the accounts I need. Perhaps in a few years I might have to make an effort. 

Yorkie006

Band7 said:

Zanderman said:
I like to change my phone to a more current model every 2-3 years

You may be happy to change your phone so often, but there are people who simply can't afford that. We're in the middle of a cost of living crisis and possibly heading into a recession, people are struggling to pay their bills, heat their homes and buy food, getting a new phone just so they can use a banking app is hardly a priority. If people like that need to replace their existing phone, they will probably buy a second hand older model that may not be good enough to run those apps either.
Banks need to be accessible to everyone, not just to those well off enough to buy a new phone every few years (not to mention older, disabled and vulnerable people who may not be able to use apps even if they had them).

Band7

Yorkie006 said:

Band7 said:

Zanderman said:
I like to change my phone to a more current model every 2-3 years

You may be happy to change your phone so often, but there are people who simply can't afford that. We're in the middle of a cost of living crisis and possibly heading into a recession, people are struggling to pay their bills, heat their homes and buy food, getting a new phone just so they can use a banking app is hardly a priority. If people like that need to replace their existing phone, they will probably buy a second hand older model that may not be good enough to run those apps either.
Banks need to be accessible to everyone, not just to those well off enough to buy a new phone every few years (not to mention older, disabled and vulnerable people who may not be able to use apps even if they had them).

Just because I am happy to change my phone every 2-3 years doesn't mean banking apps stop working after 2 or 3 years. I specifically said I am changing my phones for other reasons. 

I think some people in this thread are overly emotional about the matter. If they would be happy to do their banking on a PC, i.e. in a browser, they could use the browser on their phone if for whatever reason they can't run the bank's app. For the foreseeable future, there are still plenty of banks which offer online banking.

Also, there seems to be an assumption that people have laptops or PCs - - - -  this is increasingly not true, including for the very reasons you list against phone upgrades / replacements.

phillw

FFHillbilly said:
with an attitude like this you will likely be denying yourself more and more services, this is the way the world is going.

In a couple of years, 4G phones will soon be the the oldest ones working in the UK as 2G & 3G are being retired.

So even the "I have a mobile phone, I don't have a smart phone" people will either have to get a smart phone or do without a mobile phone.

My 4 year old smart phone is hanging in there still.

glennevis

phillw said:

FFHillbilly said:
with an attitude like this you will likely be denying yourself more and more services, this is the way the world is going.

In a couple of years, 4G phones will soon be the the oldest ones working in the UK as 2G & 3G are being retired.

So even the "I have a mobile phone, I don't have a smart phone" people will either have to get a smart phone or do without a mobile phone.

My 4 year old smart phone is hanging in there still.

You can operate a mobile phone without a SIM installed and use WiFi.

eDicky

phillw said:

FFHillbilly said:
with an attitude like this you will likely be denying yourself more and more services, this is the way the world is going.

In a couple of years, 4G phones will soon be the the oldest ones working in the UK as 2G & 3G are being retired.

So even the "I have a mobile phone, I don't have a smart phone" people will either have to get a smart phone or do without a mobile phone.

'Non-smart' or 'semi-smart' 4G handsets are available, but a decent one probably doesn't cost much less than a smartphone good enough to be useful for most purposes, including banking apps.

I'm happy to have eliminated computers from my life; aged 75 and not particularly tech-savvy, I do everything I need to do, including banking, on my 4+ year old phone.

So I have no objection to the trend by banks to continue development of better and more useful apps, and to encourage their customers to make use of them, for convenience all round. Unless their use is difficult because of personal impairment, just to dismiss the convenience of modern tech for 'don't want to know' reasons seems pretty pointless.

subjecttocontract

phillw said:

FFHillbilly said:
with an attitude like this you will likely be denying yourself more and more services, this is the way the world is going.

In a couple of years, 4G phones will soon be the the oldest ones working in the UK as 2G & 3G are being retired.

So even the "I have a mobile phone, I don't have a smart phone" people will either have to get a smart phone or do without a mobile phone.

My 4 year old smart phone is hanging in there still.

In that case I will probably give up the mobile phone. Did you know it's entirely possible to live without one ?

wmb194

subjecttocontract said:

phillw said:

FFHillbilly said:
with an attitude like this you will likely be denying yourself more and more services, this is the way the world is going.

In a couple of years, 4G phones will soon be the the oldest ones working in the UK as 2G & 3G are being retired.

So even the "I have a mobile phone, I don't have a smart phone" people will either have to get a smart phone or do without a mobile phone.

My 4 year old smart phone is hanging in there still.

In that case I will probably give up the mobile phone. Did you know it's entirely possible to live without one ?

Given that so many banks, online credit card payments and other sites, companies and organisations rely on OTP text messages I doubt it.