Sounds like someone forgetting that for a large number of people, their mobile device is their only computer.

My main reason to go to bank after online was to deal with physical things. Mainly checks and specifically depositing them. Now, I can usually do that with my phone because of the camera. Even if I had a webcam before, I don’t recall the functionality being there. They had check scanners but usually for businesses and my check volume is really low so never made sense to get one (usually came with a monthly fee to have one iirc)

Even now, the mobile deposit limit seems sufficiently low that I still go to the bank with more frequency than I’d like. Luckily, the ATM at the bank has a check scanner now that doesn’t have a limit so that’s usually easier and faster. It’s the daily $5000 limit I hit the most, a single check and put me over it and require a trip to bank. I think the monthly limit is $30000 and that doesn’t get in my way often. I think $5000 is too low of a daily limit. It’s common enough that I have to make a $5k+ settlement with friends/family that usually always has to be done by check. (For curious, This is usually travel that I pay for and we settle up later.)

Less common, but sometimes I need to get a bank check (guaranteed funds) or a money order. Way less frequent is need to get/give cash funds. Usually can use ATM for this unless it’s a larger withdrawal or if I need some particular denomination. This whole paragraph accounts for about 1-4 annual trips in any given year though.

My bank decided that the online banking website needed to be more like the app, so now they are both terrible. Basically the entire site is white space on the computer, because everything is centred and dumb down. Input fields for numbers are invisible, they are just a label saying "Kr" and you're suppose to click it and the numerical keyboard on the phone pops up, except it obviously doesn't on the computer.

Paying billed is easier on the phone in the sense that bills in Denmark have a three part number, e.g. +71 1234567890 1234678 where the first is a type number, second is the receiver and the last is a customer number with the receiver. The phone allows to just use the camera to scan the number.

Transferring money is terrible on both platforms, because it's designed to be doable on the phone, meaning having three or four screen, but it gives you no overview. There's plenty of space on a computer for a proper overview giving you the feeling of safety, but it's not used. Same for account overview. Designed to the phone, but doesn't adapt to the bigger screen and provide you with more details, so you need to click every single expense to see what is is exactly.

Yes...because banks have made it much more difficult to do online banking through a web browser as a forcing function to route people to their apps.

I actually switched to a credit union last year from Chase partly for this reason. Chase used to have m.chase.com, which was PERFECT for most of the banking I did while being extremely fast, even back in the 2G days. They Web 2.0'ed it in 2017 and deprecated m.chase.com in 2018 or so.

The provider that maintains my bank's online banking platform made it fast and lightweight, much like m.chase.com of yesteryear, while also adding more modern authentication security (2FA vs SMS).

I do online banking on my phone. There's two reasons for it:

1) Because of regulations, I need to use my phone to log in into internet banking and to confirm every transaction (including online card payments) anyway. If I already have to find a phone, I might just use it all the way.

2) Invoices have QR codes on them nowadays, that you can scan with your phone and it will prefill all the account numbers, amounts, etc. That's easier than copy-pasting or rewriting it.

Now this is all actually terrible, because to live in a society, you need a bank account, and to have a bank account, you need Google or Apple-controlled smartphone. (there are some legacy banks that allow you to use SMS for second factor, but it's less and less common)

One bank I work with seems to have all but given up on online banking and I just have to use their app because online banking will no longer work on Linux (although they don't openly admit it).

I think Android and iOS are safer platforms than PCs and that's why banks want you to use your phone.

I think mobile deposit by scanning a check with your smartphone camera is one piece of it?

I've never seen a bank offer that feature via their website.

Official banking apps are harder to phish than websites. They also tend to keep you signed in for longer, especially once you enable something like FaceID.

For inexplicable reasons I have found that some operations are only possible through the app. Ok they are not inexplicable, there is the illusion that the App is more secure and thus some high impact stuff is only possible through the app. At least in my bank.

Cofounder at Envelope here. Yes, a well polished banking app is much easier to use for many tasks

- Push notifications within seconds of swiping your card - Frictionless to check your balance/budget/cards with bio auth - Mobile check deposit (as others here have stated) - Instantly locking/unlocking your cards - Budgeting built-in

If, to you, "doing online banking" means "sitting down at my computer and scrolling through the PDF statements on Chase's website" (I don't blame you, I've been there), then yes, doing that on a desktop is much easier. I'd encourage you to take a look at how far banking apps have come recently.

You can deposit checks via the app pretty easily.

Yes, the apps perform better/faster and generally have more UI thought put into them. Overall, lower friction. Often when people need to use their banking app, they're in a hurry, maybe stressed (e.g. in line at a grocery store) so everything the bank can do quickly and with visual assurance helps.

On the premium end of banking, where users generally aren't stressed about money, offering an app is more about catering to however the user prefers to interact.

How do you deposit a check on a PC? I know on a computer you can just take photos of the front and back, and deposit it.

> I do not get what's special about banking apps as opposed to online banking.

I use both. In the beginning I used to prefer the web version. I can use my large monitor to see more data and use a full keyboard and mouse. But I have started to use the mobile version more. For Wells Fargo at least, the mobile version is faster to log into because of face ID support. The website requires a lot more clicks and keystrokes. Also, the mobile app makes it easy and possible to deposit checks if and when I get them.

No, the article is wrong about the iPhone.

It's the Internet that killed bank tellers.

How do you scan a check on your PC?

Generally yes the apps tend to be easier to use for most things, especially with a high-speed internet connection. Customers prefer them, banks build them since customers prefer them.

I can do all the same things with my bank with a browser that I can via the app.

It seems like a natural evolution of the technology and adoption rates to me. There was rudimentary online banking in the 2000s, then we saw banks shift to fully online presences in the 2010s. Maybe it wasn’t “the iphone” but just the fact that by the 2010s, everybody had a device in their pocket.

I've had the same thought. The only major difference that I can think of is the built-in camera making check deposits easier. It may also be that people were just generally using computers more and using the internet more over this same time period, although a lot is that because of smartphones

Yeah, I have been doing online banking since around 1998.

I have refused to install the bank app on my phone because I see no point in it and just downsides in case I get mugged (bad experience in my teenage years)

The 1 check I get a year takes about a minute to deposit at the ATM on my way to work.

Mostly easier in the sense that it is always in your hand already, not at home on the charger on your desk.

Ever deposit a check via PC browser?

An app on your phone can be more secure as you are using the device itself as a hardware token.

Most of the difference is intentional enshittification of the non-app UX because it pushes users onto a platform where they have less control over their device and thus less ability to avoid malware like ads and tracking.

Honestly, its overkill. When my MaBook went kaput, i had to start doing everything on my iPhone. Had to get a good mobile documents office suite (Collabora is great ), do all my banking with both mobile apps or desktop browser apps, etc. Its been dfine, i doubt i would use a full size computer for that anymore.

My bank doesn’t allow for zelle access on PC. Otherwise I would never mobile bank.

I mean, this argument isn’t really specific to banking apps. This could apply to any native vs. web app, in general.

Native apps can provide a bit more streamlined UX (e.g. Face ID), while also being able to provide more robust features (mobile deposit).

The downsides are arguably higher development costs / OS compatibility, and having to install a separate app.

I used to do banking on my (touch tone) phone before I did online banking. I still do online banking on my PC because my budget spreadsheet is on my PC, right next to my browser window.

Personally, I don't think this is about banking apps. I'm kinda surprised an article talking about ATMs and teller jobs barely mentions cash, checks & cards and doesn't mention paypal or venmo at all. I used ATMs less when it became less of a necessity to carry cash.

You don't use cash to buy things online. Even in person, outside of brick & mortars, paypal/venmo became in vogue at some point in the past. Those are banking apps in their own way.

Yes? Why would I go over to my computer and boot it up and sit down and type in a website when I could just pull my phone out tap tap done?

I'm always a bit confused in these discussions what is special about banking software of any kind at all. My bank has an app, but other than checking a balance every now and again, the only reason I use it is because it's also my insurance provider and I make claims through it. For actual banking, I don't really do any, through the website or the app. My pay is direct deposit. My purchases are on credit with payment details generally stored with the vendor; otherwise, I have cards or use the numbers. Monthly balance payoff is autopay. I had to go into the website once to set all that up however many years ago I don't remember, but people talk in these threads like they're in their banking apps directly moving money around all the time, actually making payments with the app. Why?

Doing it on the go via the app is much easier than using the web app through the main OS browser just because the UI is optimized. not a problem with using the web app approach, just that there isnt as much investment in it due to zeitgeist i guess.

Also since you are already using 2FA, you are already on the phone so might as well do basic operations there.

I can also look at transactions in my bed before going to bed so that is nice.

If I need to look at a support ticket or look at transactions more deeply, i still use the desktop approach.

Right, I'm going out of my way to avoid inviting Google/Apple and their respective app store surveillance ecosystems into my transactions. I don't even have banking apps installed. I don't understand why so many people are prostrating themselves to this future for minor convenience.

Mobile payments (at least in places where they are executed correctly) are certainly a huge improvement over physically exchanging cash and change. I haven't needed to take out my wallet for years.

You just need to understand how things are now. Here are few modern smartphone conventions that render banking on an old-fashioned PC totally obsolete:

- Remembering that you need to do banking, but waiting to do it until you're at home in front of your computer. This is impossible now, and if I don't follow the impulse the moment it occurs, the impulse will forever escape into the ether.

- Even the mere mention of needing to observe a URL is often far too scary. Typing one in, or using a browser bookmark is of course, impossible.

- Using a keyboard and mouse. It's just too onerous to use tools that are efficient and accurate. Modern users would much rather try to build a mental map of the curvature of their thumb, so that when they touch their touchscreen and obscure the button they're hitting, they they can reference that 3D mental map to guess at what portion of the screen they've actually pressed. Getting this wrong 30% of the time does not detract from the allure of touch screens.

- Using a normal-sized screen that allows you to actually see a lot of data at once, or even use multiple tabs. Again, this is really unthinkable. Of course it be be completely unacceptable to need to wait to do your banking until you're in front of a computer. It's 2026, and I cannot be bothered to remember to do a task later. But, in needing to always follow every impulse immediately, it doesn't matter that my phone screen only displays a small amount of information at once, or that tabbed browsing is impossible in a banking app. Those inconveniences are acceptable, or even welcome!