What's stopping banks from creating FOSS (or atleast open-source) banking solutions (apps)? - eviltoast

cross-posted from: https://fost.hu/post/226135

Let’s say, I create a bank with the caveat that all of my banking phone apps and webapps are FOSS (or if they depend on non-free components — banks probably do to communicate with each other —, then just OSS). Am I going to be behind the competition by doing this?

If the most secure crypto algorithms are the ones that are public, can we ensure the security of a bank’s apps by publicizing it?

Are they not doing this because they secretly collect a lot of data (on top of your payment history because of the centralized nature of card payments) through these apps?

EDIT: Clarifying question: Is there a technical reason they don’t publicize their code or is it just purely corporate greed and nothing else?

  • rufus@discuss.tchncs.de
    71·
    1 year ago

    There are.

    https://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Finanzverwaltung/

    Sorry, I didn’t find a good link about Linux accounting software in English. And I’m not aware of any Apps.

    I’ve used GnuCash before but that isn’t a fun way to do accounting. It’s made for proper bookkeeping.

    The Standard is called HBCI and needs to be supported by your bank. (it is relatively old, though)

    Banking seems to vary a lot between countries. So I’m not sure what standards (and if…) they have where you live.

    There are eCommerce solutions with payment and accounting. I’m not sure if the addons that connect to your provider/bank are open.

    It all boils down to an open standard being available. It feels like there is some (international) regulation missing. At least for consumers. I bet large companies have their banking accounts tied into their (proprietary) software.