Banks are gradually removing features from their websites in a progression toward complete elimination of the website. Some banks have already taken that step. They impose an app whilst also closing their over-the-counter service.

Unlike the US, 1-factor authentication by banks is illegal in Belgium. So for web access banks typically hand out devices for 2FA. Some banks avoid that cost by imposing a smartphone app in lieu of a card reader or RSA token (BYO smartphone).

There are many problems with bank apps in Belgium:

1. You must buy smartphone hardware (the apps detect when they are executed inside a virtual machine & deny service [tested with Ing’s app])
2. You must patronize a surveillance capitalist (create a Google or Apple account)
   2.1. You must subscribe to mobile phone service in order to satisfy Google’s unreasonable demand for a mobile phone number as a precondition to obtaining an account
   2.2. You must trust Google with your mobile phone number, IMEI number, and inventory of apps & versions you download (thus a reconnaissance risk)
   2.3. When Google records your place of banking, you must trust Google not to share that info (with debt collectors, for example)
3. All bank apps in Belgium are closed-source, so you must trust the apps not to carry spyware and to work in your interests
   3.1. The bank’s privacy policies are written to allow your realtime location to be tracked via the app.
4. You must chronically upgrade your hardware every few years because the bank apps are upgraded with reckless disregard to the lockstep-coupling of hardware to software on all phone platforms that are supported by Belgian banks. You cannot run a VM to prevent irresponsible electronic waste (see point 1)

The #GDPR possibly (and only symbolically¹) protects from some of that, such as Google sharing your place of banking with debt collectors. But the GDPR does not prevent criminal exfiltration of data that cavalier consumers trustingly agree to the collection of.

Footnotes:

1. I say “symbolically” because consumers only have two pathways for remedy under the GDPR: article 77 & direct lawsuit. Article 77 has no teeth. When the DPA ignores/mothballs an art.77 complaint, there is no mechanism for action against the DPA. So DPAs are largely neglecting to treat art.77 reports. That leaves direct lawsuits. The EU has decided that GDPR plaintiffs are not entitled to compensation for legal fees. So that kills that option. You can get a symbolic win in court but you still lose because lawsuits are costly and the damages you can prove are negligable. So the GDPR boils down to an honor system.