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points by commandersaki 1 day ago | 0 comments
Just how it goes, vote with your wallet.

My mortgage was with a bank that had a website but no app and I was happy, and then they merged with another bank and only had an app and no website and I was not at all happy (but the bank they merged with also had their own mortgage product with both app and website and I do not know why they didn't migrate to using that platform). I swiftly moved to a bank that incidentally had a lower interest and both a competent app and website, and I noted to the previous merged bank that the reason I was leaving is that they did not accommodate me. Whether that feedback was heard, I'm unsure.

[–] Freak_NL 1 day ago
Not an option if all banks follow suit. If this trend continues you would only switch to a bank who hasn't yet locked down their app yet.

Hopping banks is easy for just savings, but a lot of work and inconvenience for your standard payment accounts, and that's ignoring additional services like mortgages and insurance.

[–] microtonal 1 day ago
Indeed. It also fights symptoms rather than the underlying issue - that Google Play Integrity is an anti-competitive method that Google uses to shut out competition. The fact that Google-certified phones that are months behind on critical security updates (or even have malware in there updates as a recent case) do get a pass, shows that it is not really about security, but about destroying competition in the smartphone ecosystem as early as possible.

The solution is not voting with your wallet, but either leveraging the DMA or drafting new laws that counter this.

Either Google should be forced to approve secure alternatives like GrapheneOS or companies should be required to also implement AOSP attestation. Or alternatively, remote attestation should be banned completely, but I can understand the argument that it serves some legitimate uses.

[–] versluis 1 day ago
I filed a complaint at ACM (Dutch authority consumer market) about this a while ago since you need to be a google partner to be approved and that is anti competitive. They were very interested in this and even asked for a follow-up. I think they have an open issue about this. So it is a good idea to contact your national authority.
[–] braiamp 1 day ago
I love how people think "vote with your wallet" is an option on most "vote with your wallet" issues. If people could vote with their wallets they wouldn't have to, would they?

Vote with your vote for politicians for common sense regulations that favor the consumer at the expense of everything else.

[–] kyranjamie 1 day ago
This is how it should work, but not how it does. Dutch banks don't pass down increases in interest rates simply because the risk of losing customers is so low [1]. Dutch consumers don't want, can't be bothered, or have such loyalty to their bank of choice, that even a criminally-low rate won't convince them to switch bank

[1]: https://www.acm.nl/en/publications/acm-savings-rates-lag-beh...

[–] microtonal 1 day ago
Dutch consumers don't want, can't be bothered, or have such loyalty to their bank of choice, that even a criminally-low rate won't convince them to switch bank

It is also just very hard in practice. A lot of people have their mortgages, savings that are locked for years, etc. at a bank. Also, switching a bank also impacts other family members if you have shared accounts, etc.

In this particular case it's also not fully clear yet whether Wero is starting to enforce this. If that happens to be the case, it's only a matter of time before other banks also start requiring Play Integrity for Wero transactions.

[–] Freak_NL 1 day ago
It's not hard to just move your savings. A lot of people do that actually; just keep the standard banking account for daily payments and all other services, and put savings in bank-managed ETFs, time deposits, or savings accounts with other banks (I do all three).
[–] yourusername 1 day ago
It's not hard to move your savings but due to some "coincidence" all Dutch banks keep their interest rates within a very narrow band (some advertise with higher interest rates you get for 6 months). Dutch people are very averse to banks outside of the country due to the icesave affair and not trusting that for example Estonia or Italy will actually be able to make them whole in case of a crisis. So in the end are you moving your money from Rabobank to Andolubank (whoever they are) for 0.3% more interest? Probably not.
[–] chronogram 1 day ago
Savings rates on all savings accounts are useless. Rabobank even has a managed passive investment account that functionally works like a savings account if you really don't want to use funds yourself [0], I think ING does too. If you do use funds or invest otherwise it doesn't matter which bank you use.

0: https://www.rabobank.nl/particulieren/beleggen/rabo-beheerd-...

[–] DannyBee 1 day ago
Reminds me of the tweet i saw: "My bank, who passed all 14 interest rate increases on to my mortgage, and none of them on to my savings account interest, is currently sending me tips on how to spot financial scammers"
[–] account42 1 day ago
> vote with your wallet

That's not good enough, you also need to convince regular people to do the same. Your vote alone will not achieve anything.

[–] Muromec 1 day ago
It was heard and will be taken into work around 2030 once we stop embargoing MCP as a dangerous technology