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Most of the article is merely breathless praise of features that other banks and credit unions have had for years, but one paragraph caught my eye: > Altman

Most of the article is merely breathless praise of features that other banks and credit unions have had for years, but one paragraph caught my eye: > Altman said GoBank was also designed to save customers > time and that Green Dot looked for lots of ways to > accomplish that. One, he explained, is that customers > can check their account balance, without logging in, in > just two seconds -- far faster than the 80 seconds or so > it takes people on many banks' mobile apps, he said. So anyone who borrows my phone can see my account balance? If my phone gets stolen while it's unlocked, the thief knows who I am and how much liquid cash I have available?

henrikschroder 14y ago
I have no idea how it works in the GoBank app, but in my bank's app I can mark one account as the "quick-check" account, and on the start-screen of the app there is then a pull-down which reveals the balance of that specific account when you activate it. No account numbers or any other info, just the balance. I love the feature, it literally takes two seconds to find out my balance, but yes, if someone borrows my phone or steals it, they can know how much money I have on one of my accounts. If you're the type of person who worries about that, simply don't activate the feature. :-) (Oh, and you have to re-authorize the "quick-check" account once a month or something while being fully logged in to the bank app, so it automatically expires if you forget about it, which is a nice feature. Still, that's my boring old bank, and not cool and hip and revolutionizing GoBank... :-) )
Firehed 14y ago
The Mint app supports an additional passcode lock, as do many other banking apps with a semi-persistent login. I haven't tried GoBank's app but they probably have something similar. I wish more apps support multi-level authentication to support this at-a-glance information. I'm perfectly fine with my balance being only behind a 4-digit passcode, but transfers should require a recent full password auth. That being said, designing and implementing such a system securely is easier said than done.

henrikschroder 14y ago

I have no idea how it works in the GoBank app, but in my bank's app I can mark one account as the "quick-check" account, and on the start-screen of the app there is then a pull-down which reveals the balance of that specific account when you activate it. No account numbers or any other info, just the balance. I love the feature, it literally takes two seconds to find out my balance, but yes, if someone borrows my phone or steals it, they can know how much money I have on one of my accounts. If you're the type of person who worries about that, simply don't activate the feature. :-) (Oh, and you have to re-authorize the "quick-check" account once a month or something while being fully logged in to the bank app, so it automatically expires if you forget about it, which is a nice feature. Still, that's my boring old bank, and not cool and hip and revolutionizing GoBank... :-) )

Firehed 14y ago

The Mint app supports an additional passcode lock, as do many other banking apps with a semi-persistent login. I haven't tried GoBank's app but they probably have something similar. I wish more apps support multi-level authentication to support this at-a-glance information. I'm perfectly fine with my balance being only behind a 4-digit passcode, but transfers should require a recent full password auth. That being said, designing and implementing such a system securely is easier said than done.