Ally: Bank, Auto & Invest 4+

2024: great app but STILL not VPN friendly

AND ANOTHER THING: What's with the "Your Ally session timed out due to inactivity" push notification? Do you really think my session timeout is so important that I need to get a push notification every time I use your app? Have you, or anyone you know, ever received that notification and said, "Oh, my Ally app session is timed out, I better do something about that"? No? Yeah, I didn't think so. And this notification can only be disabled if you completely disable all Ally notifications which is nuts. I bet this was some manager or consultant's "contribution" to the Ally app project to justify their insane salary. Please remove this useless notification or at the very least give your users the option to turn it off separately in app settings.

2024 UPDATE: So, it’s 2024 and the Ally Bank iOS app (and website) still aren’t VPN friendly. Literally every other banking app and website that I use work fine with VPNs. But Ally Bank chooses to be stuck in the past and jeopardize the security of their customers because they don’t want to spend a little money to make their app and website VPN compatible. Do better.

ORIGINAL REVIEW: Great bank and app. One problem: when my VPN is on, the app gets stuck on the loading screen. I have many other bank / brokerage iOS apps and every single one of them works flawlessly with the VPN enabled. Please update your iOS app to work with VPNs.

Developer Response ,

Hi, we hear your concern. We’ll share your feedback with our team. ^MG

Could be better

I’ve had Ally about 10 years now. Was first attracted by their no penalty CDs when I was saving for my first home. Obviously in that amount of time alot has changed in my own life and therefore current needs, tech and stock trading. The good: they’re polite, easy to get a hold of on the phone. The bad: their stock trading interface is circa 2010. This is how others used to look and function so originally I didn’t think anything of it but other options have come so much further now I don’t know why y’all don’t get with the program to keep a younger customer base engaged. I like the analyst reports and options charts but actually entering a trade is cumbersome and they won’t let you trade on margin. Plus it only shows your average holdings of a ticker- no clue how to see how much of that is ST or LT to make informed decisions when selling. There are much better stock trading options out there. Only reason I still have the stock account I do is because my main brokerage no longer accepts stock transfers and I don’t want to cash out of these. I moved 90% of my money out years ago when it was in cash. Summary- as a bank they are competitive with CD rates. I’ve never used them for normal savings or checking so can’t comment. Good customer service. To stay competitive, their trading side needs a major facelift, but does have better research tools than others.

Great service, but the app is bad.

I’ve used a couple of other online banking and investing apps, as well as other financial apps such as those for credit cards or loan accounts. When compared to those apps,I have found ally’s has been underwhelming, confusing, and frustrating at times. For rhe most part, I had found the user interfaces for the other apps very intuitive, easy to navigate, and have small and seemingly insignificant features that are taken for granted until you use an app that doesn’t have them. Such features include buying fractional shares of securities, without which investing in companies such as Berkshire Hathaway (stock currently valued around $450,000/share) becomes impossible to the common investor. Another capability missing from the app is the ability to manage external accounts used to fund your ally accounts - instead, there is a message that says to visit their website to manage your accounts, and while they provide the URL of the website, they could easily provide a link within that message that would take you directly to the site instead of having users exit the app, navigate to their web browser, and then manually enter the URL.

Despite how I feel about the app itself, I enjoy ally’s services. This is the only reason that I am leaving this review, in hopes that it will be viewed by the powers that be within the ally organization and that they will take action to overhaul the app.

Developer Response ,

Hi, we'll be sure to pass this message along to our team so your feedback is heard. For immediate assistance, please give us a call at 1-855-880-2559.