[trinix912]

We have had these apps in various EU countries for quite a while and it's been fine. You can get a prepaid SIM from a grocery store and register it with them, and so on. You can always SEPA transfer the money if you don't want to use this.

It's also more convenient than giving out an opaque UUID to your friend to transfer you money or something similar.

The bigger problem I see with this is it being one more service locked exclusively to Android and iOS devices, but it's the same with most currently used banking apps anyways.

[tamimio]

> You can get a prepaid SIM from a grocery store and register it with them

After you provide your gov ID

https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/sim-card-regist...

So now this phone number is tied to your gov ID and bank account, amazing design of a single point of failure based on a broken protocol (GSM).

[pndy]

I don't know how the procedure looks like in wherever-you-are but in EU phone number is required to either have a call from agent or to receive verification codes from text messages if bank you've pick offers opening an account on your own. Either way, bank gets all your personal data - you are not anonymous for them.

And the SIM registration requirement in nearly every EU country exists for 10 years now - in my case it was as simple as replying with code to operator's message because they had my personal information already for over a decade. There was a grace period after which unregistered SIM cards become dead - the requirement was dubious but you had to comply in order to call, text. There were "solutions" I've bumped on in depths of the Internet but neither felt serious nor safe.

[trinix912]

> After you provide your gov ID

I could get it without an ID and my (EU member) country is painted green/blue on those maps in your source. I always love it when people from abroad try to tell me how things work in my country, when they clearly have no idea.