In my experience with UK banks & financial institutions, GrapheneOS support can be roughly divided into four types.
None. Explicitly banned. And, though I feel bad for saying it, I can't blame them. If some idiot roots their phone and downloads malware, the bank may be responsible for refunding them. I can see why they don't want that headache.
Some. App works, but some functionality is unavailable. I've got a credit card app which works, but refuses to set up virtual cards or use "remember me". That's good enough for my use. Similarly, I had a merchant account which let me see my balance, but I couldn't use my phone as a credit card reader.
Works, but only in main profile. I'd rather keep financial things in a locked profile. But lots of banks disallow that.
Full. Everything works (although you may need to toggle some exploit protection off).
Some banks are reasonably good at letting you pass on technical queries to their developers - mostly the smaller ones. The nice thing about the UK banking sector is that it is trivial to move banks. So I switched accounts to providers which worked with my phone and let the old ones know why I was moving.
Without evidence that using an OS that isn't approved by Google or Apple actually correlates with a higher rate of account compromise or fraud, I do blame them for trying to force it on users.
I've done a couple casual web searches for such evidence and come up short. If somebody has good data on this, I don't think they're publishing it.
> None. Explicitly banned. ... I can't blame them. If some idiot roots their phone and downloads malware, the bank may be responsible for refunding them. I can see why they don't want that headache.
I mean this is the whole reason GrapheneOS does not ship a rooted version that they attest to. I doubt they are explicitly banning GrapheneOS, what they are doing is only trusting Google attestation.
The reason some banks explicitly allow GrapheneOS is because its easy for them to also trust GrapheneOS attestation, because it is not a rooted OS, and sensible security teams in banks can see that its more secure than any other Android phone including Pixels.
I wish people would understand this better, its what gives GrapheneOS a fighting chance of becoming a legitimate open source mobile OS that is accepted as secure for consumer use and that is not controlled by Apple or Google.
> The nice thing about the UK banking sector is that it is trivial to move banks.
Are there countries where this is a hassle? Now I've only had personal banking accounts in ~3 countries (so far?), so maybe I'm in a bubble, but in none of the countries has "switching banks" been more than basically create a new account, start using new IBAN for incoming transfers, move direct debits to use new IBAN and start using new card(s). Those last two were even automatic in the last move I did for a lot of stuff. Is it typically more difficult than that in other countries?
Having the debits move to the new IBAN automatically had to be mandated and built. It doesn't just happen. In markets with large incumbent banks they have no incentive whatsoever to make switching easy.
There are countries where, as a result of mergers, banking is now down to 3-4 banks, and they all have the same Android requirements, so switching won't get one anywhere.
True. Those who only care about meeting regulatory requirements are not going to care if the regulatory requirements cease to exist. Those who care about security may be dismissive of regulatory requirements, but they will do so primarily when they are insufficient or when they conflict with their opinion. In the former case, they probably have the ability to go beyond the regulatory requirements. In the latter case: while I won't claim that regulations are perfect, I would trust them over the an anonymous person who may be going on anything from their personal opinion to legitimate research.
Currently, besides if you use cryptocurrencies, I don't think you can rely solely on "written regulations and systems of checks", somewhere along those processes there are a bunch of humans with their altruism (or lack of), taste and daily life moving those processes along. And judging by the state of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, this is probably a good thing more than a bad thing.
Good. I am tired of vendor-lock-in of a few corporations
dominating the world here. Capitalism was never
corporate-fascism - after all one element is free competition
in a free market. This has been broken numerous times again
and again, and the US justice department is deliberately
unwilling to remedy this situation - thus also betraying
the idea behind capitalism. No wonder since the orange
mafia is running the show right now, with all signs of
real dementia now being obvious.
After that guy was arrested for wiping his GrapheneOS phone with a duress password, some reports appeared of previously usable apps becoming unusable specifically on GrapheneOS. This now reads like a possible reversal of that trend.
Where is this list of 12+ banks that explicitly allow graphene. My understanding is if the banks do not explicitly state support also in terms of ToS, they might pull the rug any moment. With neo banks you are then basically left without a bank.
I found some evidence of half a dozen that there might be support 'by desogn' (all of them might pull the rug at any time again as far as I understand TOS, which however seems true for any android in theory): Swissquote, Yuh, UBS, Starling Bank, Triodos Bankieren NL, AmeriCU Credit Union. More?
None. Explicitly banned. And, though I feel bad for saying it, I can't blame them. If some idiot roots their phone and downloads malware, the bank may be responsible for refunding them. I can see why they don't want that headache.
Some. App works, but some functionality is unavailable. I've got a credit card app which works, but refuses to set up virtual cards or use "remember me". That's good enough for my use. Similarly, I had a merchant account which let me see my balance, but I couldn't use my phone as a credit card reader.
Works, but only in main profile. I'd rather keep financial things in a locked profile. But lots of banks disallow that.
Full. Everything works (although you may need to toggle some exploit protection off).
Some banks are reasonably good at letting you pass on technical queries to their developers - mostly the smaller ones. The nice thing about the UK banking sector is that it is trivial to move banks. So I switched accounts to providers which worked with my phone and let the old ones know why I was moving.
I've done a couple casual web searches for such evidence and come up short. If somebody has good data on this, I don't think they're publishing it.
I mean this is the whole reason GrapheneOS does not ship a rooted version that they attest to. I doubt they are explicitly banning GrapheneOS, what they are doing is only trusting Google attestation.
The reason some banks explicitly allow GrapheneOS is because its easy for them to also trust GrapheneOS attestation, because it is not a rooted OS, and sensible security teams in banks can see that its more secure than any other Android phone including Pixels.
I wish people would understand this better, its what gives GrapheneOS a fighting chance of becoming a legitimate open source mobile OS that is accepted as secure for consumer use and that is not controlled by Apple or Google.
Are there countries where this is a hassle? Now I've only had personal banking accounts in ~3 countries (so far?), so maybe I'm in a bubble, but in none of the countries has "switching banks" been more than basically create a new account, start using new IBAN for incoming transfers, move direct debits to use new IBAN and start using new card(s). Those last two were even automatic in the last move I did for a lot of stuff. Is it typically more difficult than that in other countries?
Ironic for apps that are often so paranoid about "security" and "hardware attestation"
But both are examples of cybernetic entities, if they don't care then their control loops aren't correctly aligned.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
Looks like good progress to me.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...
I'm just starting a deep-dive on it.
As a newbie, can existing users point out any other gotchas?
* EDIT: Oh ffs, only on Pixel phones ...