Why won’t the Halifax app let me sign in with my fingerprint?

I’m a big fan of the Halifax bank app. In fact, it’s about the only thing keeping me with the bank – it’s certainly not the abundant generosity of its interest rates. However, a recent bug in the Halifax app prevented me from signing in with my fingerprints, demanding my ‘memorable information’ every time. Here’s what caused the bug and how I solved it.

What caused the Halifax fingerprint bug?

When I set up my phone, in something of a hurry, I only registered one fingerprint with the device. A few weeks later, I decided to add a second fingerprint, so that I could sign in no matter which hand I held the smartphone in.

This caused the Halifax app to throw a strop.

The first time I signed into the bank app after adding the additional fingerprint, it declared that the number of fingerprints registered with the device had changed and demanded my memorable information. I was actually quite impressed that the app’s security was that strong, preventing an unauthorised user from somehow adding a fingerprint and making hay with my bank account.

However, the next time I logged in it happened.

And the next time.

And… well, you get the message.

How do you fix the problem?

Luckily, this one was quite easy to resolve. The problem was fixed by uninstalling the Halifax app and then reinstalling it from the Google Play Store.

You’ll have to go through the set-up procedure again, which involves full username, password and memorable information, as well an automated confirmation call from the bank, but it’s less painful then having to re-enter the memorable information every time you open the app.

The Halifax is part of the Lloyds Banking Group, so you might well see a similar problem with the Lloyds and Bank of Scotland apps, too.

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