1w ago

Bank account requiring Google play account, how to bypass ?

After a recent forced update, I can no longer login to my bank account, the app brings up google play and expects me to login to gplay for what ever reason,I am not logged into that cancer on my phone, so now I am fuming and don't want to be forced to make a google account on the phone. (by the way I have been using aurora to avoid gplay)

I am hoping someone has a some trick or app to bypass this ? I have talked to the bank but there is nothing they can do for just one weird customer !

Everything is going to shit in this dystopian technocracy

50 comments

Either use the website if it's possible or switch banks. Those are about your only two options.
- This is my strategy. If I can't bank on the website I find a new bank.
  
  Same here. I had a bank where you could do most things from the website, but it turns out you couldn't do a few things without the app, and so I got rid of them and got a new bank.

That's insane. And it seems perhaps like an ugly case of integration gone wrong. Are you able to Use the website and add a bookmark to the website onto your phone's home screen or something?
That might bypass any app-based logins.

Try to use F-droid.

So I read the comments, and it seems like you don't really want to switch banks, and the web interface to "too barebone".
My only suggestion is:
Download Shelter - You can create a separate "work profile" that separates from you normal apps. Create a new google account within the work profile just for this purpose, and intall the app in the work profile. Apps inside the work profile can't see anything on your normal profile.
- Or get a google pixel with GrapheneOS and make a extra user profile for it.

I have this problem too... I use LineageOS with GPlay Store disabled and my bank's app worked perfectly for a couple of years. Since a couple of months ago, I need to have GPlay Store enabled to be able to use it.
I've tried putting my Google account into Aurora Store and so far it works.

If you're really going to stick to aurora or avoid gplay (even a burner account for just your bank would be enough to help you out here), you're gonna be eventually stuck with web/telephone banking.
Anything else risks you getting flagged as suspicious by your bank, or at the very least opening your own attack surface to the same app by someone else.

Change banks.
- And make sure they know exactly why you left
  
  They won't care
- This is the answer.

Change bank.
Don't use the app.
- very hard to change the bank when alot of payment accounts are linked to it.
  they have moved most of the features to the app the web portal is very barebone.
  
  It may be hard and take time, but it sounds like it would be worth at least starting the process and slowly take steps to move. If they've done this, what's the likelihood that they'll do something even worse later?
  
  Acting on your principles isn’t always easy.
  
  What are a lot of payment accounts?
  If I had too many services I pay for, I'd try reducing that as well. Less is more for me.
  
  My bank did the same... except not really. A bunch of functions still opens in the browser, but you can only get to them via the app, not directly using just the browser.
  Another option for you would just be "buy a secondhand cheap phone for banking and nothing else"
  
  very hard to degoogle your phone/life. sounds like youre willing to put some work in...

Nobody should be using a bank which requires a mobile app in the first place. iOS is proprietary closed-source software and FOSS Android-based OSs likely won't work because of the the SafetyNet lockdown.
We do not currently have decent privacy on mobile, period. If you can't do everything on the web, change bank.
BTW I did just this myself. Opened a Revolut account and then closed it after discovering that the web app was not fully functional. Here in Europe at least, I believe Revolut is exceptional in its obnoxious attitude to user privacy.
- If you can’t do everything on the web, change bank.
  And to be clear, make sure you can do everything on a web site. Not a Chrome site.
- GrapheneOS is both secure and private. It also supports hardware based attestation (No need for SafetyNet). It's just that mediocre people who develop these apps do not wish to support freedom respecting platforms.
  
  Absolutely. There remains the small issue that Graphene only works on devices made by a certain purveyor of mass-surveillance spyware.

Which shitty bank is this?
- Yes, warn us who to avoid.
  
  *whom

Complain to your bank, obviously.
- I did, doesn't change a thing, I have no power to influence what they add into their app
  
  Sadly the only power you have is to switch banks, and let them know when you close your account why. I switched from Ally to Aspiration partially because of this.
  
  No power to influence it is incorrect. You do not have the power to change it. However, if you leave, you are a data point. If lots of people leave, they are also data points. Data influences decisions at most companies. This statement does not imply the data is read correctly, nor that the decisions made in light of the interpretation of the data are the best ones.

Why install an app when you can just use the bank's website?
- they have moved most of the features to the app, the web portal is very bare bone.
  
  Sounds like a shitty bank.

My bank app entirely disabled itself because they "detected" that I use a modified OS. I only use web since then.

Only way to bypass this is by not using the app.

Separate cancer phone that you only use on WiFi would be my guess, short of the oft cited switching banks. Alternate could be to put payments all on a card and only use the card issuer's site to make payments to them so you don't have to directly interact with the bank.

There not much options here first old project twoji which android container basically or graphenos(voltageos which have same features as granhenos but for many other phones ) which make in container google apps

Buy a cheap second hand phone just for those apps and leave it at home.... That way if you lose your phone you are not locked out

Techno bureaucracy https://invidious.perennialte.ch/watch?v=H8qrbwfhtn4 / https://youtu.be/H8qrbwfhtn4

Making a work profile using Insular or something? Or maybe create a different user?
I believe you can still access internet-banking, without the need for an app?
Maybe, setup MicroG. If the your bank app just redirects you to google play store app, I think Aurora Store might be able to fool it, considering you disable or remove GPlay using adb or something.

50 comments