[…] Neil Brown, board member at F-Droid, said he was blocked from accessing HSBC’s UK mobile banking after a security screen flagged Bitwarden as a risk. Brown had installed the password manager via F-Droid rather than Google Play.
Bitwarden, an open source password manager, is available through official channels including Google Play and Galaxy stores, as well as via F-Droid sideloading.
HSBC didn’t provide The Register with a clear answer on why it won’t allow a sideloaded Bitwarden installation to coexist with its app on the same device.
Representatives from both F-Droid and Bitwarden suspect the issue stems from HSBC’s side.
Gary Orenstein, chief customer officer at Bitwarden, told us: “It seems that HSBC has chosen a level of security and permissions for their mobile app that allows the HSBC app to see if there are other apps on the phone not installed from the Google Play store, and if one is found, to disallow the install of the HSBC app.”
[…]
Source: HSBC blocks app users for having sideloaded password manager • The Register
There are many great reasons to install apps from things that aren’t the Google Play Store, privacy and freedom of choice being a major one – especially with people trying to escape the Google / Apple duopoly by jumping to other OSs like Sailfish (on the Jolla Phone). Not being able to access your banking app is a major problem. I guess it’s time to start changing banks as well then!
Robin Edgar
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