“Financial Safety Alert: The Personal Finance Apps That Pose a Data Theft Risk”

Many apps, tools, and data can be used to access a person’s money, and scammers will always target these entities. Even though nearly 200 million Americans use bank apps for checking their balances and depositing checks, transferring money between accounts, and paying bills securely, not everyone is so fortunate.

It is a fact that these apps tend to share more data than it may seem necessary to share, according to Merchant Machine, a professional data analytics firm. There is a new research, published in September 2023, which suggests that the average app asks for 20 types of data in total, as shown in 204 applications, each with over 5000 reviews by users. 

The collection of some of these data is legitimate for the sake of providing a better service, but much of it goes to fuel marketing and profiling efforts.

Essentially, mobile banking means that users can access their accounts by using the app available from their bank. 

There is a big difference here between online banking, which involves logging on to the bank’s website through the phone’s browser or directly through the device’s browser to access the account.

The mobile banking industry was already booming well before the COVID-19 lockdowns occurred. There was 33 per cent of bank customers who used a mobile app before the pandemic, according to the American Bankers Association survey that was conducted for their benefit. 

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“Financial Safety Alert: The Personal Finance Apps That Pose a Data Theft Risk”