Not everyone, sorry if it came across like that. But I remembered a few people with some ridiculous comments geared in that direction.
I do get what you mean though, I did feel like some of it was an over reaction. It was pictures hardly something new for RBS, having them there or removing them makes no difference for me, it still works the same.
I’m more annoyed at the duplicate notifications when approving transactions (or that they don’t automatically go away when you approve a transaction) and the lack of proper statements which (IMO) is ridiculous for a bank not to have in their app
I absolutely agree! RBS are on their way to having a really excellent app, the additon of access to proper statements in app, would be a boon for many. As I said in another thread, if it weren’t for the insurance package on our Nationwide account, I’d shift our joint account to RBS, but only if they get rid of the bloody card reader!
Saying that though, I’m super impressed with the speed of their app development. They’ve been consistently rolling out a new feature almost every month like clockwork. So I’m pretty confident that statements will show up eventually.
Really though, this is what I envisioned when I thought new banks had to get their act together or they’d die when the big banks woke up one day and said to their developers ‘here’s £5 million, make the app good n stuff’
I like the layout of the app over starling for example, I like starlings spaces but RBS’ standard savings accounts are more powerful pretty much just as easy to setup.
Starlings spending tab though is better than the rbs one, I just never use that one it takes to long to load and is to cluttered for me to bother to make sense of it.
Now I have my suspicion they’re working on something. If you’ve ever looked at their third party access and approvals part of the site the design is completely different. Leads me to think that they may have some long term plan for it but it’s just not a priority yet.
I’ve just noticed a thread on the Monzo forum where a screenshot taken from RBS is highlighted with the notice Allow “Royal Bank” to track your activity ya de da.
Clearly if this is an issue for anyone, in iOS in privacy, you can just set the slider to deny access to apps that ask to track, so not entirely sure what the problem is. Mine is set to deny allowing apps to track.
Unfortunately (and maybe this is an issue with how it’s been implemented by apple) there’s not a lot of info there for me to understand what’s actually being asked.
You have to go to RBSs preferences centre to see what it means and see what the scope is. Which actually isn’t that bad, mainly first party Cooke’s and Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. Nothing like the guardian website which lists well over 100 companies they want to set cookies for
And correct me if I’m wrong but cookie preference settings have been in the app for some time under privacy settings?
Until you’d pointed this out, I’d never bothered looking under Privacy settings within the RBS app. The only one that is turned off out of the four, is Targeting Cookies and I’m assuming that is tied in directly with the Apple tracking slider in iOS privacy settings. I’m guessing that prior to me setting the iOS privacy slider relating to app tracking, the RBS slider for Targeting Cookies would have been on?
I’ve had the beta version of iOS running for a bit and have always had the tracking option turned off so I assume it’s been off by default on all the apps. I never got promoted when opening the app but I’ve seen that preferences page before I’m sure.
Also, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, Nationwide use the card reader in a big way, so why is RBS using it (with a plan for replacing it) stopping you from using them more? @Topsy2
I had also noticed the third party approvals thing, so I think that they are looking to improve the website. Equally the applications part of their website has been improved with a responsive design over the past few years.
On iOS App Tracking Transparency, then yes - the toggle in the Settings app under Privacy is a global toggle. So if you have “Allow apps to ask to track” set to off, you won’t get any apps asking for permission - the request is effectively automatically denied for you.
I keep specific parts of my financial affairs completely separate between banks. So I use Nationwide for our joint account and that is used as our household expenditure account and nothing else, so food shopping, utility bills, furniture purchases, anything for the home. RBS, a personal account solely used for my salary and personal work expenses. Starling, solely for my final salary pension and own personal expenditure. My Wife has her own personal Starling account for her personal expenditure and salary.
It’s only the packaged FlexPlus account that’s keeping us with Nationwide because for us, it’s worth paying the £13 a month. This being said, with the continuance of Covid and the travel restrictions and amendments to travel insurance cover, it eventually might not be worth us staying with Nationwide, in which case I would then shift the joint account to RBS. My Wife and I both think Starling is a thoroughly capable bank, but going full hog with a Starling joint account and lumping 2/3rds of our entire income into one bank, isn’t a an option for us.
Thanks for explaining! In your situation, I would probably keep the FlexPlus solely for the insurance and use a more fully-featured joint account somewhere else as well (just because I would miss things like notifications, and wouldn’t want to have to deal with the card reader; I also really dislike Nationwide’s online banking). Still, if it works for you and your wife, who am I to say anything‽
Has anyone with NatWest/RBS/Ulster NI etc. been able to use the new biometric approval yet to authorise payments above the ‘lower limit’? I tried to set it up the other day but it said I wasn’t eligible yet, but as soon as cheque imagine was switched on server-side I tried again and the app has now let me register a photograph of my face (it said that Voice authentication was ‘coming soon’). But now that it’s registered, I can’t seem to do anything with it. When I view my payment limits, it still just instructs me to log in to online banking with that horrid card reader!
Same as Topsy2 I think they’ve rolled it out to enrol in it, but havent turned it on yet to be used. Its still listed under coming soon as well (along with quite a few other features)
I noticed this too. Having randomly checked the enrolment page in all three (RBS, NatWest and Ulster NI) over the past few weeks, sometimes it shows I’m eligible to enroll and sometimes not.
I’ve decided to wait until they roll out voice biometrics as well before registering, then I’ll register both and enroll for everything all at once.
Maybe just keep checking back and it will become enabled?
As @Eden says though, I don’t think they let you use it to approve payments yet - it’s probably coming in the next app release.
…which seems to be the concept of using biometrics in the app as an alternative to the card reader for online banking at nwolb.com. Whereas I assumed the first one was referring to payments made through the app itself.
Regardless, it’s reassuring to know it’s not just me it isn’t working for! Let’s hope they activate it soon - I’ve got some big payments I’ll be needing to make with my NatWest account soon and I don’t want to have to use a card reader ever again!
