Yeah, this really is a piss take, and you’re right to be angry.
I get that HSBC has a duty to keep accounts secure. Nobody is arguing against fraud protection. But scanning your device for unrelated apps, judging where they came from, then locking you out of your own money crosses a serious line.
Bitwarden is a respected, open source password manager. Treating that as suspicious behaviour is absurd. Worse, it sets a precedent where banks decide what software you’re allowed to run on your own phone. That’s not security, that’s control.
If access to your money depends on complying with a bank’s idea of “approved thinking”, then something has gone badly wrong. This is exactly why people are losing trust in centralised systems and looking for alternatives.