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HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

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Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#161

Post by tormeh »

fpoling wrote: post #138
embedding-shape wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never occurred to me that moving to any other EU country might be harder than that. I don't think it is? I moved to Spain from other EU country the same way, basically bought the cheapest one-way plane ticket I could find, spent ~1 month here before deciding I wanted to live here, then got myself the local residence card one morning and that's about it. Everything else just worked by using my passport in the meanti…

In Barcelona it is impossible to get an appointment for the residence card. There is online booking system, but it never shows any available slots. But then there are few companies that for 50-100 euros can get an appointment. But then even with appointment one only gets a temporary permit unless one already got a job offer. One gets the permanent card only after starting a business or buying a property or getting a…

If you're an EU citizen you by definition have a permanent permit, until either your country of origin or host country leaves the EU. If you are not then woe be you, but that's a separate matter.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#162

Post by immibis »

embedding-shape wrote: post #96
gambiting wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah absolutely - I have an account with mBank in Poland and I got a letter from them saying that I need to declare if I'm a "tax person" in the US and if yes then unfortunately they will be forced to close my account as they would have to report all of my banking to some US insistution and that's not worth the hassle of having me as a client.

That doesn't sound like "the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure" at all, it sounds like EU banks or de-banking US residents/citizens, which is wildly different from the initial claim, or how I understood it at least. I thought EU residents/citizens were being cut off from EU banks.

The reason banks do this is that if they don't comply with US tax laws they'll be cut off from all US-based banking systems including international payments (universally conducted in USD), cut off from issuing any credit or debit cards (they are all US-based networks) and the CEO will be arrested if he ever steps foot on American soil. So basically, the US is forcing them to do this and they don't have a choice unless they want to stop being a bank. It's the same situation as dealing with US-sanctioned individuals. HTH.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#163

Post by Arch-TK »

jsiepkes wrote: post #108
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But my device, my choice Given there is a choice, and given HSBC is on the hook if you get hacked in most jurisdictions, it seems fair to chalk this one up as a stupid move by HSBC that's nevertheless within their rights.

HSBC is on the hook if I get hacked? I can't think of companies having to pay up because their customers got hacked because of their doing. Let alone if it wasn't directly their doing. Solarwinds was for example never forced to pay a dime.

In the UK, yes, banks are on the hook if _you_ get scammed. It seems the bar for them to prove that you were at fault is too high so in reality the banks just make the decision on what you can buy for you.

A good few years ago now (when it was possible to get something in good condition for such a measly sum) I was buying a car from a private individual. The transaction was in cash. You can't take £1500 out from an ATM, unless you spread it over multiple days, and probably doing that would also get you flagged. So I went to my bank (also HSBC coincidentally) and they required me to tell them what I was buying with that money.

Now I could have lied, of course. But they could also have just told me that I can't take cash out if they didn't believe me.

If you look around, there are news stories of people being denied access to their own money because the bank decided it was too risky.

You can get kicked out of a bank for being too risky. And there's not even any legal requirement in the UK for a bank to offer you an account. Or well, there _is_ but like with all UK regulations which protect the individual, it's full of caveats. You are entitled to a Basic Bank Account (BBA) if you can't get any other account except if you can't verify your identity/residency, or you have a history of financial misbehaviour, or if you are too closely associated with terrorism. So I guess homeless people or pro-palestine protesters aren't allowed bank accounts.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#164

Post by petre »

thevania wrote: post #144

can't wait for digital euro https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2025... https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2025/html/ecb.sp251... i hope it will be part of the digital wallet initiative: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wallet there is an active discussion there on NOT integrating play integrity API or any other US-dependent remote attestation: https://github.com/eu-digital-identity-wa…

Whatever. They're just going to tie it to age verification, so it's only more control, only of the EU flavour. Might be an alternative for some people though.

I've worked with digital and smart tachographs and seen their security implementation. Its not pretty, mirrors EU bureaucracy. If Franz Kafka wrote specs, those would be it.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#165

Post by immibis »

denysvitali wrote: post #107
sschueller wrote: post #9

That's Google's SafeNet. HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps. We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies. If they decide they don't want to they can even if the law doesn't forbid it. People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD. The US has started to sancti…

At least in Switzerland banks can choose to not use Play Integrity, but they generally don't want to. Yuh, which once was owned by both Postfinance and Swissquote, works without Play Integrity. Support for GrapheneOS is confirmed - see https://github.com/PrivSec-dev/banking-apps-compat-report/is... The real issue is that most "legacy" banks have to comply with stupid regulations that force them to come up with these…

If they get enough complaints "the app doesn't work, please fix it or close my account" they'll fix it because they don't want to close more than a few accounts.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#166

Post by _zoltan_ »

mamonster wrote: post #66
sschueller wrote: post #9

That's Google's SafeNet. HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps. We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies. If they decide they don't want to they can even if the law doesn't forbid it. People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD. The US has started to sancti…

>Swiss law requires one bank (Postfinance) to offer banking irregardless but if you are sanctioned you can't use the wire system, no other currencies, no credit cards and you cant use Twint either so it's in effect useless. You can't pay for your health insurance or rent. What's funny is that this particular jurispudence was actually enforced due to a Russian oligarch (Vekselberg) on a C permit. I am not sure regardi…

I'm 100% sure you can pay within Switzerland from your Postfinance account. I'd like to see some source for this...

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#167

Post by bdcravens »

merek wrote: post #155

If you've ever built a website for mobile but never heard of PWAs (Progressive Web Apps), I recommend checking them out. In essence, adding 2 files can make the site installable from a mobile browser and define caching behavior for offline functionality. 1. manifest.json: a JSON file that defines the app's name, icons, theme colors, and how it should launch when installed. 2. Service worker: a JS file that controls t…

PWAs have been around for several years, and have never caught on despite all the discussion about the evils of app stores, drama with side loading, etc. They're a fine solution, but not a good fit if you're expecting "normal" users to use the app.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#168

Post by rwmj »

csomar wrote: post #91
sschueller wrote: post #9

That's Google's SafeNet. HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps. We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies. If they decide they don't want to they can even if the law doesn't forbid it. People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD. The US has started to sancti…

It's more insidious than that. The US is actively working on dismantling the Swiss off-shore banking system. It started with US clients and expanded from there (see: https://www.privatebankerinternational.com/news/hsbc-swiss-p... ) Guess where all these un-banked HNWI are going and who is offering them a gold card to run their businesses from?

No idea, where will they go?

Dismantling off-shore banking is generally a good thing since I'd like the ultra rich to pay tax as that funds services that I use.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#169

Post by rwmj »

jsiepkes wrote: post #108
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But my device, my choice Given there is a choice, and given HSBC is on the hook if you get hacked in most jurisdictions, it seems fair to chalk this one up as a stupid move by HSBC that's nevertheless within their rights.

HSBC is on the hook if I get hacked? I can't think of companies having to pay up because their customers got hacked because of their doing. Let alone if it wasn't directly their doing. Solarwinds was for example never forced to pay a dime.

In the UK, HSBC is definitely on the hook: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy94vz4zd7zo

This is both good and bad. It's good because fraud is rife and the banks had little incentive to do anything about it. It took them absolutely years of foot-dragging to add a system that verifies the name of the destination account holder when you transfer money between accounts. It's bad because the reason fraud is rampant is that the police do nothing about it. It's the crime you can get away with. The government saw the easy way out: rather than organizing and funding the police sufficiently, let the banks deal with it.

Re: HSBC blocks its app due to F-Droid-installed Bitwarden

#170

Post by 627467 »

sschueller wrote: post #9

That's Google's SafeNet. HSBC picked a level that causes this. Google manages the blacklist of apps. We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies. If they decide they don't want to they can even if the law doesn't forbid it. People in Switzerland and the EU are being de-banked by local banks because of US pressure allowing them to force any bank that wants to use USD. The US has started to sancti…

> We are rapidly losing our freedoms to the will of these companies

which companies? google? I'm the first to blame them for almost anything, but how about Postfinance, twint, health insurers, landlords, all those companies you mention? shouldn't they offer ways to do business with them that does not involve some third party? - for example, OP mentions that hsbc website still works for them on android, this is more than what can be said of other banks that basically removed certain "sensitive" features from their homepages. Or practically all the neobanks who 100% rely on apps.

Even those governments you mention: how hard/easy do they make for citizens to engage in commercial activity without relying on third parties or adversarial systems?

I know the argument used by all of them - companies, governments: we are just "following the rules enforced on us (as interpreted by our lawyers)".

Everyone goes to the "simplest" target - Google in this case - to blame for the status quo, but Google is in this position because everybody else - consumers, companies, governements, etc - buys into the "convenience" and neglect everything else.

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