While it was never my primary bank, I’ve been a Simple customer since it was in beta and still known as Bank Simple. I’ve searched my email, checked the announcements in the app, and checked the website, but there’s no mention of them closing. You can even still apply for accounts online. Talk about mismanagement!
Simple Bank Is Closing
301–310 of 615 posts
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't get myself to pay for services like YNAB or mvelopes.com I could see someone wanting to pay for a year or two until they've established the habit of disciplined saving. But to perpetually pay a service to present a (useful) facade over your money doesn't seem right if it's not also instilling habits in you that don't depend on software.
YNAB is excellent - its design forces people to budget properly. It also lets you track all expenses and let’s you keep lifestyle inflation in check. I’ve found it well worth it (and I’m pretty responsible financially). Mint on the other hand is totally useless.
Yes, I pay for YNAB and have for years, because otherwise I would have to rebuild it in Excel and my version would be terrible. It's well-designed, it's fun to use, it makes me less anxious about the state of my finances and it helps me to spend and save more responsibly.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
(I am the ceo of Mercury) We do have an export feature. Let me know what its missing (email in bio). Also, what did you think was misleading? We try to be fairly straightforward and transparent with everything we offer.
Does it export in all formats likes he’s claiming it doesn’t? Can you point to documentation? Usually, and not always, when someone makes a shadiness it’s directionally hinting at someone.
We have a QB export compatible file. It's an export button on the top of our transactions page and has date, description, amount, status, bank description, reference and notes as column.
I don't think we have specific documentation of that feature, but I am happy to demo it. Our api documentation is here: mercury.com/api.
I am sure there is something specific Tyler was talking about. Would love to learn what it is so we can fix it.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#304I don't know how many Simple employees are in this thread. I'm very sad to hear this news, and I'm sure you were too. Just want you to know that you all made a really meaningful difference in the lives of at least my wife and I. Before I switched to Simple, I had a really hard time budgeting for things/planning for expenses, and was frequently toeing the line of overdrawing my account. I was essentially financially i…
Depending on your mortgage interest rate, have you considered continuing the 18 years and investing your extra cash in index funds? Market returns ~10% over 20 years, so if your mortgage is 6% or less it's in your best 'interest' to continue.
Financially this makes sense. But for me, I’m sitting in a house that’s paid off. If I lose my job (or have to quit for medical reasons) and I can’t get a new job, I’ve got shelter. I can live Indefinitely where I am right now just paying utilities and property tax. Granted there is the reality of things just break on houses and require $$$.
Maybe it isn’t the best strategy. But there’s a nice feeling to know that I’ll have my house even if something bad happens.
And by bad I mean less than societal collapse. All bets are off in that situation.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
I tried it. Auto-import never worked reliably. I asked their customer support for help, and they said I should just do it manually. They seemed like a close alternative, but if I'm doing all this work manually, I might as well use a spread sheet for free.
They've done a bunch of updates to the importing in the last year so it might work better with your institution now. They support Oauth for the bank creds too for those that support it, which is great.
It's still not great. You have to reauth accounts all the time, and I'm constantly getting the little wrench icon telling me they can't pull transactions right now. I've not found a single alternative that will give me a solid overview of all my various accounts as an api that I can build my OWN dashboard off of, otherwise I'd use that. YNAB still gets my money, but reluctantly until then.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#306I'm a Simple customer and incredibly upset by this decision. For those not familiar with their value add, Simple is essentially "envelope budgeting" built into a banking application. Sure, it's a bank and does bank things. What sets Simple apart is that I can allocate $n/month for an expense and it takes it out of my paycheck and puts it into that expense "envelope". When a charge comes in for that expense, it pulls…
I can't get myself to pay for services like YNAB or mvelopes.com I could see someone wanting to pay for a year or two until they've established the habit of disciplined saving. But to perpetually pay a service to present a (useful) facade over your money doesn't seem right if it's not also instilling habits in you that don't depend on software.
I've tried YNAB multiple times but would inevitably miss entering a transaction and then it would be a pain reconciling my bank accounts with YNAB. Without tracking the transactions I couldn't accurately use YNAB to determine how much was left in the budget.
Having an envelope like system built into a bank would be extremely useful.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#307ouch...the one bank with a really nice user facing app...hoping to hear more details
I've been working on the app for almost 8 years. This means a lot to me. Thank you.
I absolutely love "Safe to Spend". Best, most transparent feature I've ever been offered by any bank.
Great job on Simple. I am so, so sorry to see you go.
I'm also dying to know who you think your best competitor in UX is, because they're who I want to transfer my money to. I wouldn't have dreamed of asking if y'all were staying open.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use Robinhood's banking feature for this (I don't use them as a brokerage, though). It lets me do direct deposit and automatic withrdrawals from a single account, while earning savings account interest. The interest isn't significant at the moment, but it was nice for a few months, before COVID. I use Mint and Personal Capital for monitoring my budget, rather than earmarking funds.
You're getting 0.3% APY, which is pretty useless. I would instead try some of the banks that promise you higher APY rn. There are some offering 2-3%
Who's offering 2-3%?
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it export in all formats likes he’s claiming it doesn’t? Can you point to documentation? Usually, and not always, when someone makes a shadiness it’s directionally hinting at someone.
We have a QB export compatible file. It's an export button on the top of our transactions page and has date, description, amount, status, bank description, reference and notes as column. I don't think we have specific documentation of that feature, but I am happy to demo it. Our api documentation is here: mercury.com/api. I am sure there is something specific Tyler was talking about. Would love to learn what it is so…
He specifically said Netsuite and not Quickbooks but to be fair thank you for responding and clarifying with detail.
Re: Simple Bank Is Closing
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a happy Schwab customer. Their app isn't what you would call simple, but you can do almost all your investing and banking there (I say almost because I own some physical assets) and they refund ATM withdrawal fees.
> they refund ATM withdrawal fees Most importantly, they do this (as well as priority mailing replacement cards) globally. I have yet to find another bank besides possibly Fidelity's checking account (?) that does this with no stated limit. It's invaluable for those who travel abroad to have access to local currencies with no hassles and a refund of all fees.
I managed to get my Schwab debit card eaten by ATMs twice in one trip once, and Schwab was able to quickly Fedex replacement cards to addresses I provided in Thailand and Hong Kong. It stopped my trip from turning into a big headache - I was really impressed.