> It does if you want to fully use google play services. If you run google play services as a regular app, you cannot use banking apps, whatsapp (app works but no backups to gdrive) or uber for drivers. And you also cannot do purchases in the app store sadly. If you can live with this then fine.
This has nothing to do with it being sandboxed. You are talking about the SafetyNet api, which makes sure the device is using the "official" android version.
And no, not every banking app requires this.