Having worked for a bank I will add my jaded opinion. Throw logic out of the window. Banks have their own regulations, history and internal policies. Finding a job is hard right now so one may have to grin and just accept it. Don't think too much about it.
Ask them if you can use VMWare or VirtualBox in the virtual desktop and get a VMWare license assigned to you. It's clunky but something they might actually have and may save some headaches. If this is an option ask them which Linux ISO is permitted and where it is.
How common is this?
Very common for a bank especially for offshore or remote employees.
Also, curious what kinds of workarounds people are using?
Nobody outside of the bank will like this answer. Ask them what work around is permitted within the policy. If your questions are always without emotion and always centered around policy they may grow to like you and with time you may earn more trust than others making your job just a little easier.
I've finished up there now, so this is purely retrospective.
For them - the workaround (sadly) was -- a lack of testing.
I was really surprised that in a heavily regulated environment (this project faced off to a regulator) Integration testing (which has gotten really easy on the JVM thanks to stuff like TestContainers) just didn't exist.
That could be symptom of a broader lack of a test-driven culture though.
Having worked for a bank I will add my jaded opinion. Throw logic out of the window. Banks have their own regulations, history and internal policies. Finding a job is hard right now so one may have to grin and just accept it. Don't think too much about it.
Ask them if you can use VMWare or VirtualBox in the virtual desktop and get a VMWare license assigned to you. It's clunky but something they might actually have and may save some headaches. If this is an option ask them which Linux ISO is permitted and where it is.
How common is this?
Very common for a bank especially for offshore or remote employees.
Also, curious what kinds of workarounds people are using?
Nobody outside of the bank will like this answer. Ask them what work around is permitted within the policy. If your questions are always without emotion and always centered around policy they may grow to like you and with time you may earn more trust than others making your job just a little easier.