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BankSimple Launches Preview Site

banksimple.com

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Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#21

Post by chrisgoodrich »

jakarta wrote: post #4

I'm still trying to nail the business model here. "BankSimple account plus BankSimple debit card replaces your existing personal bank account. Make deposits, withdraw cash, pay bills, earn interest, and more. However, BankSimple is not a "bank." We partner with chartered banks who provide FDIC-insured products, leaving us free to concentrate on designing the complete consumer banking experience, via the web and your…

from the FAQ (https://www.banksimple.com/faq/)

> If you don’t charge hidden fees, how do you make money? We make money from two sources: interchange and interest margin. Interest margin is the revenue earned from lending, less what they pay on deposits. For example a bank may charge a customer 12% to borrow money, but pay 5% interest on a savings account. The difference, less any defaults on the loan, is revenue to the bank. Interchange is a small revenue source that card issuing banks earn whenever that card is used at a store. Typically banks earn less than 1% for each time the card is used to make a purchase. These are both great revenue streams, but banks got greedy and started charging additional fees to bolster their revenue. Without hundreds or thousands of branches, our operation is low cost, so we don’t need to rely on extraneous fee revenue.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#23

Post by Lewisham »

I'd pay for Mint + Bank in a single package. It looks great. However, it's hard not to be a little disconcerted when the "meet the team" bit doesn't have a single person who has any sort of financial title like "accounts manager" or anything. It's just a group of devs. That doesn't scream "we know finances" it screams "we know how to make web apps, hope you trust us with money too... it can't be that hard, right?"

Mint got away with this by simply being a front-end, and never touching your money. BankSimple should try a little harder to prove that it's not just a company that can identify why banks suck (not all that hard, really), but a company that can actually be relied upon to safely handle your money.

* I know that BankSimple are putting all your money into an FDIC bank, but as the intermediary and the company you are doing business with, the buck stops with them (pun somewhat intended)

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#24

Post by jsdalton »

Qz wrote: post #17

The signup form doesn't work if you use autocomplete to enter your name and email address. Had to delete random letters and retype them to get the button to light up.

Yeah, they are probably using the javascript change event to trigger the enabling of that submit button. Unfortunately, most autocomplete functions don't trigger the change event.

It's a real pain; you end up having to poll the form fields for changes and then trigger the change event manually.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#25

Post by yummyfajitas »

abp wrote: post #15
yummyfajitas wrote: post #7

I'm just curious - what exactly is banksimple selling? Just regular banking + better UI?

Doesn't https://www.banksimple.com/faq/ answer your question? Also, as they offer at the end of the faq: Why haven’t you answered X? If there is anything you’d like answered, feel free to shoot us an email at hello@banksimple.com.

My bad, I didn't see the FAQ. I didn't even realize their page scrolled, I was navigating it sideways via their tabs ("putting people first", "no surprise fees", etc) rather than vertically.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#26

Post by puredemo »

Qz wrote: post #17

The signup form doesn't work if you use autocomplete to enter your name and email address. Had to delete random letters and retype them to get the button to light up.

Had the same issue and thought the form was just broken until I saw your comment. This is probably losing them a lot of signups.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#28

Post by nathanwdavis »

abp wrote: post #14
nathanwdavis wrote: post #11

It's unclear what Bank Simple actually is. Hopefully (for their sake) it will be clear when they launch.

Doesn't https://www.banksimple.com/faq/ help?

I didn't see a link to the FAQ anywhere. I see now it is a small link at the very bottom.

Regardless, I still don't see what the great value proposition is other than that they are friendly. My bank (a small local bank) has never charged me a overdraft fee, never had to wait more than a minute, and I can only remember one time that I paid an ATM fee. I must have just been lucky enough to get one of the non-evil banks.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#29

Post by donpark »

Lewisham wrote: post #23

I'd pay for Mint + Bank in a single package. It looks great. However, it's hard not to be a little disconcerted when the "meet the team" bit doesn't have a single person who has any sort of financial title like "accounts manager" or anything. It's just a group of devs. That doesn't scream "we know finances" it screams "we know how to make web apps, hope you trust us with money too... it can't be that hard, right?" Mi…

BankSimple is not a bank. Think of them as a user-friendly GUI over a group of banks. As to where money actually gets deposited, it probably depends on which bank offers the best deal at any given time.

Re: BankSimple Launches Preview Site

#30

Post by mey »

donpark wrote: post #29
Lewisham wrote: post #23

I'd pay for Mint + Bank in a single package. It looks great. However, it's hard not to be a little disconcerted when the "meet the team" bit doesn't have a single person who has any sort of financial title like "accounts manager" or anything. It's just a group of devs. That doesn't scream "we know finances" it screams "we know how to make web apps, hope you trust us with money too... it can't be that hard, right?" Mi…

BankSimple is not a bank. Think of them as a user-friendly GUI over a group of banks. As to where money actually gets deposited, it probably depends on which bank offers the best deal at any given time.

Doesn't mean that GUI doesn't have control of your financial interactions, moving your financial accounts between underlying banks, or being involved in any of the interchanges (ACH/Debit/Credit Rails, etc)
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