A UK customer discovered that HSBC flagged and blocked his mobile banking access after detecting Bitwarden password manager on his device. The incident highlights a troubling reality: traditional banks monitor your installed apps and can restrict access based on security tools you use.

This raises an uncomfortable question for the crypto community—if password managers trigger banking lockouts, what happens when institutions detect Bitcoin wallets or crypto exchange apps? The regulatory stance continues hardening. As financial institutions tighten app-level controls, the friction between traditional finance gatekeeping and blockchain adoption is becoming impossible to ignore.