Latest update of the Halifax App, that seems to have been just released, includes in-app deposit of cheques through a photo 
Also - a new rainbow kite splash screen. Still not fully utilizing the iPhone X screen though.
1 Like
Fantastic. Been waiting for this feature. I imagine the Lloyds update will follow very shortly as the apps are basically the same with different themes on
Would be interested to know how seamless the cheque imaging is 
Let us know if you test it out!
1 Like
That UI still looks awful though, even if we ignore the lack of iPhone X support.
The security theatre about āauthenticating your deviceā is hilarious as well (hint: the device is authenticated the second it makes a request with the appās authentication token retrieved from the deviceās keychain).
2 Likes
To be honest - I have very few gripes with the app:
- not using the whole screen (still)
- very slow to login/auth that I almost always miss the
look at the screen now for faceIDtime as I start doing something else
- It does not provide you with your own account IBAN number, but you can make international payments as long as you know the receiverās IBANā¦ That one is just odd - why show it on the web but not on the app
Apart from that the app is totally passable and even brilliant if you compare it to the HSBC app or the Santander monstrosity 
But itās still rubbish compared to what you expect from any modern app, like Monzo, Starling, Revolut, Monese, etc (or the millions of other non-banking apps which actually were developed by a decent team).
1 Like
Ive used it with B Bank and itās very quick and easy/seamless!
The Halifax app sucks. I worked there. I know 
they have added a cheque pay in, and changed the splash screen? Thatās all thatās changed since I left in 2017 woahā¦ 2016 sorry 
1 Like
Bāa app is slow logging in and half the time seems to fail!
Sorry my original post wasnāt very clear.
I agree the app is slow and fails a lot. I was refering to the cheque imaging part which works well in my opinion.
Having run it through my proxy server once, because I was curious what on earth itās doing for all that time, I can definitely say that itās not purely theatre. Iām not sure what exactly is going on, but there are a lot of requests going back and forth between the app and Halifaxās servers. But thatās about as far as I got at the time 
One thing I do remember, is that some banking apps (not sure about Halifax anymore) check things like GPS position, near WiFi APs / phone towers, etc. All of these are quite time consuming, but there is value in these checks.
soā¦ poorly designed api? I canāt see why it canāt be
request 1 - auth
request 2 - give me all account numbers, current amount and credit/overdraft limit
lightning-fast
This is all the information they display on splash page anyway, and everything when clicked on shows the loading spinner so I am assuming they are always fetching new information. That said, requests past first load are pretty quick, I cannot really complain. Only the cashback extra ones were really slow, but I think that has improved significantly.
I wouldnāt necessarily say so. You may have missed the second paragraph of my post as I edited it in quite a while after I originally posted it, but at least some banking apps (and I donāt remember about Halifax) do all sorts of stuff to further validate you are you.
Of course you may think they shouldnāt. That knowing your PIN/password and possession of the device should be enough. But I believe, that in a post-data-breach world, where it may be easier to purchase your breached password from āunderground websitesā than to try and remember it, authentication shouldnāt be binary. It should allow for a lot more greys, and I think that some of these tactics can be valuable.
As always, a lot will depend on the implementation. And you will inevitably have lots of people who will be annoyed by the consequences (long authentication times, having to contact support if you need to reinstall the app, etc). And so itās great to have choice. But I wouldnāt write it off as ātheatreā or poor design. I believe there is value in these things.
What Iām more surprised is that itās actually allowing you to run it through a proxy - Iād expect it to use certificate pinning (like Monzo and Starling and Curve and Capital One do - Iāve checked) and not accept your proxyās CA certificats even if itās in the deviceās trust store.
It was a pain - which is why I didnāt get very far: By the time I had finally been successful I had to take care of other things, and never got back to it ā¦
1 Like
New update today - finally supporting iPhone X screen, though the splash page looks a bit odd (the corners are being cut out).
Also it seems to be significantly faster.
1 Like
I see cheque imaging has now launched on the Lloyds app. Which we know is just the same app as Halifax but with a different theme applied.
They have also doubled down on performance. The app opens so much quicker than before. Nice to see it moving in the right direction.
2 Likes