Hardware tokens are not allowed in Europe to authorize certain operations such as bank transfers: you need a device that can show the operation you are about to authorize ("enter 123456 to confirm your payment of 99.99 € to Pornhub"). And that essentially means using a phone.
I don't think card readers can display payment information, can they?
And I have no idea why, but no bank offers photoTAN devices in my country. They seem like an interesting concept, even though I imagine the underlying hardware isn't far from that of a phone, in the end.
I’ve seen dedicated hardware devices which scan a QR-like code and show this in a little screen of their own. The bank provides them and does not require any app.
I am interested too, my fallback bank trapped me (or my courage to resist), the fallback of fallback would be crypto but i am not sure i want to depend on this too...
Meanwhile, the last hope is that people will use more cash (if the digital world is too hostile, oh wait it is!)
I'm in Europe, and some of my banks still operate with a token just showing numbers, while others use devices with QR code readers and a colour display which then can show transaction details.
They don't really like you using that and keep annoying you to stop doing that, but I don't think they'll fully get rid of that - those are filling some accessibility niches as well.
There are "simple" hardware tokens that allow for that - you have to enter the amount and part of the destination IBAN and they generate a 2FA number based on that + probably the same number generator it uses for logins.
