The Volksbanken had announced it in a big way: Weeks ago, it was said that SMS tanning would end at the end of July.

Now there is another grace period.

After that, the offer will end in September.

Specifically, there are still technical problems with some Huawei devices and business customers.

"In order to give banks more time to convert these customers, the shutdown was postponed to the end of September," said the responsible IT service provider Atruvia on request.

After all, there were still 600,000 users of SMS-Tan at the Volksbanks, many of them inactive accounts.

At the end of 2021 there were at least 1.7 million customers.

So the transition is underway – but what is it all about?

Franz Nestler

Editor in Business.

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The authentication procedures for using online banking are currently being changed.

This involves the transaction numbers, tan for short, which you need, for example, if you want to make a transfer or generally have to identify yourself digitally to the bank.

The change is intended to increase security for customers and banks.

The paper list was the first to suffer: in the past, the tan were printed and sent on paper lists.

However, this form was soon branded as too unsafe, too expensive and too impractical.

The tan paper lists have been decommissioned since September 14, 2019, when a European Union directive came into force.

It states that every transaction must be confirmed with what is known as two-factor authentication.

One factor is logging into online banking with a user name and password, the other is authentication via the TAN, which, however, must be generated dynamically according to the directive – i.e. it must not be fixed on a piece of paper.

A cheaper security method

The next method that is now dying out will be the SMS tan.

Even with the grace period of the Volksbanks, the end is in sight: Savings in the millions should be possible - even though the short messages are bought as quotas and are therefore already significantly cheaper than for the end consumer.

But security is always an issue.

The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) warns against the procedure, which it considers unsafe.

Cell phone numbers can be spoofed, tans can be intercepted, and it's even easier if the cell phone is stolen.

The next procedure to be phased out after paper and SMS will be the chipTan – Postbank has already switched it off.

It was announced to customers in August of last year, but it hasn't worked since May 24th.

Postbank justifies it as follows: “It is important to us to always be state-of-the-art.

That is why we are continuously developing our systems and revising our services.”

But that doesn't explain why a different procedure was set.

Here the press office reports that due to regulatory requirements, newly issued Girocards are equipped with a new chip and the older chipTan devices would no longer work with it.

But one can also assume that it is due to the costs, since two (or more) security systems are more expensive than just one.

Without a smartphone, it could soon become difficult

With the deactivation of the chipTan, the Postbank, as a large branch operator, is still more or less alone in the field.

If you believe reports on the Internet, there is also great anger about this - especially among customers who recently bought such a chipTan generator.

What customers can actually do depends on the respective bank: the savings banks themselves recommend the push-tan as the means of choice.

This is an app on the cell phone where you can then approve the order without even having to enter a tan.

These apps on the mobile phone are available in a wide variety of versions depending on the bank.

For some, you still have to transfer the tan to online banking by hand.

With the Photo-Tan you have to photograph a square with colorful pixels, the app then translates this into an activation.

But what about customers who do not own a smartphone?

Some savings banks and Volksbanks still use the so-called chipTan procedure.

This is available in numerous variants.

If you don't want to do without the SMS procedure at all, the only option is to switch to another bank.

Deutsche Bank, for example, still uses this method and has no plans to discontinue it.

But be warned here too: SMS will not exist forever.

No institution can brush aside the cost and security arguments in the long run.

Then it will only be analog – or with a smartphone.