Stay Away. – PNC Mobile Banking Review

From an app perspective, PNC is very buggy. The app randomly resets face id, among other things. I could name more bugs as well as missing features, but first let’s talk about the bank, that is, the service this app provides. PNC bought out BBVA for those that aren’t aware. BBVA owned Simple, an amazing little bank with no fees of any kind and an amazing app/web platform, including overdraft fees. Once PNC made an offer to BBVA, BBVA shut down Simple and quickly forced everyone onto BBVA. BBVA had fees and a poor app/website presence. Before Simple users could even catch their collective breath, PNC took over and again migrated customers. This time Debit card numbers, limits, routing numbers, and account numbers were forcibly changed. PNC has caused severe disruption to many of us. My rent ended up being late thanks to PNC, for example, and there are a few of us talking to lawyers about possibly filing a class action lawsuit. That actually leads us once again back to the app. The PNC app is far clunkier, far slower, and far more difficult to use. If you aren’t a Simple customer and are looking to open a new account with PNC, please note that PNC does not take the security of your account seriously. MFA apps such as Google Authenticator are not supported. They implement MFA via SMS, which is trivial to defeat. To make things worse, they block VOIP numbers from MFA, including Google Voice, which is far more secure than traditional SMS. (also, they use “security questions“ in absent of SMS, which is even less secure.) PNC literally pushes you into scenarios which have known security flaws. SMS is not secure. Yet PNC makes you use it for everything. I don’t say this as a customer, I say this as a developer with more than a decade of experience that is intimately familiar with infosec. The fact they block VOIP providers, who are slightly more secure than a cell phone, speaks volumes. I personally am switching to Ally soon. PNC shows that they don’t care about dragging customers through the mud.
Review by betam4x on PNC Mobile Banking.