Personally.....I'd wouldn't use an app for banking.....I'd just navigate to their sites using a browser.
Just recently there was a case of exactly what you describe....a developer had written a whole bunch of banking apps designed to steal information.
The flip side of the whole open source thing is that there is nobody policing the app store........until something bad happens....
You have to decide if its worth it to you to be one of the people who's information gets compromised BEFORE Google removes the offending app/bans the developer
If you do decide to use an app....NEVER use an app that's not directly created by the bank/institution themselves.....
Look through the permissions of the app. I would respectfully disagree that they are all standard operating warnings and not to be heeded.
They are not all that hard to decipher....why would a file manager need internet or gps access for eg?
NOTHING is safe from someone who really really wants it......You don't want to make their job easier if they are not specifically targeting you, by being careless.
Personally I would think that Wifi/3G surfing that is encrypted is accepted as safe....even though the 3G encryption was cracked by researchers in less than 2 hours a few weeks back.
You just decide what your acceptable level of risk is... For me....I feel that it is unacceptable for me to use a banking app that is NOT written by the bank itself....But I would use banking information over 3G/encrypted Wifi.
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