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BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

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Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#211

Post by burnstek »

smackfu wrote: post #19
buro9 wrote: post #16

I'm not sure I understand the proposition now. Who is the relationship with? As in... who has my money? I read it as them hiding that from you for simplicity... you get this one interface and customer service which is wonderful, but to achieve this they are the proxy to your bank? So... do they set up the bank accounts, or do you? Do you have the ability to go straight to your bank, or does Simple preclude that abili…

I think the idea is: What if you took mint.com, and instead of interfacing with hundreds of banks, you interface with a single bank. You can integrate much more closely and provide a better experience, and the customer shouldn't really care what the underlying bank is.

The problem is that most customers do care what the underlying bank is, especially given the events over the past few years. The world may have been ready for this five years ago, but not anymore.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#212

Post by al3x »

sector wrote: post #178
al3x wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, cofounder of Simple here. Most banks do use "glorified IT systems". Very few of them develop their technology in-house. Think about it this way: you can have a bank that buys their technology from another company, or you can have a technology, design, and customer service company that partners with banks. Both are viable options, but I think our approach is going to better for retail banking customers in the long…

As a customer, I'd feel a lot more comfortable if you worked solely as a technology vendor to my bank. This isn't a knock on the team you're putting together, or your ability to build a great company. It's caused by the realities associated with venture capital. Now that you took VC money, there's countdown to an exit, and I have to think about likely buyers. If you're successful, one of the top possibilities is a st…

Hi, cofounder of Simple here.

There's a ton about when and how and if we exit that's out of our control, and I wouldn't presume to predict exactly what's going to happen. But, please know that our goal is not to sell out to a big bank. We're building this because we want to use it, and part of what we want to use is a banking service that's provided by people who are acting in the best interests of their customers.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that going with a smaller or local bank provides a more solid guarantee that you won't be banking with a giant down the road. The economic crisis of the past few years has seen a ton of consolidation in retail banking, and I think there's even more to come.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#213

Post by ben1040 »

I already use a small local bank. They have only a handful of branches and it's pretty easy to get stuff done with them.

I don't want to change that relationship because I am happy with it, and I certainly don't want to abstract the whole thing through a middleman. It doesn't look like Simple is really right for me anyway as I have several joint checking accounts and a business account as well.

But, I really wish my bank had some of the really slick online banking/mobile deposit capture features that Simple is promising. I hope that if Simple gains some traction, they can offer white label online banking services to banks or brand it as "LocalBankCo online banking, powered by Simple."

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#214

Post by al3x »

bisrig wrote: post #119
buro9 wrote: post #16

I'm not sure I understand the proposition now. Who is the relationship with? As in... who has my money? I read it as them hiding that from you for simplicity... you get this one interface and customer service which is wonderful, but to achieve this they are the proxy to your bank? So... do they set up the bank accounts, or do you? Do you have the ability to go straight to your bank, or does Simple preclude that abili…

As a follow-on to this, it certainly appears (from quick searches of your site as well as reading through this thread) as though you are not disclosing which banks you are specifically partnering with... this is certainly your choice, of course, but given the events of the past few years, I think that there's a significant number of people that make an active choice not to use certain banks due to their past behavior…

We've disclosed all of our bank, technology, and processing partners.

I don't think we're likely to allow customers to choose which partner bank holds their funds, but we do make that information transparent.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#215

Post by al3x »

maxklein wrote: post #197

So the "change banking startup" has morphed into a credit card reseller?

No, nothing has changed about our mission but our name.

Like basically every US bank, we issue a debit card. That card needs to be on one of the card networks. We chose Visa for our cards.

What we're issuing is a debit card, not a credit card. It's standard practice for banks.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#216

Post by ynniv »

AznHisoka wrote: post #198
ynniv wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could provide more detail? Simple appears to be very transparent in what service they provide and where they make their money. I said that HN is not a financial forum not because we aren't curious, but because we aren't informed. It's rather like customers fervently demanding to know which web framework you built your photo sharing website on, because "there was that thing that went bad that time before and…

Like others have echoed, I just want to know how this really works. Part of the problem of "disruption" is that it creates confusion and breaks the usual pattern of doing things. Noone will sign up for your service if it's just 1 huge black box that is completely foreign and new to them. You will need to educate how it all works... I mean, I still don't know what you guys do, or are.. You're not really a bank, Ok.. t…

Firstly, I have no affiliation with Simple. But here's my problem with this line of reasoning: even if Simple wrote a detailed description of what they are and how they work, it wouldn't actually help anyone here. Maybe a couple of us have dabbled in something financial, but that doesn't make us qualified to judge whether banking with Simple is a sound financial decision. I don't fix my own medical problems, I don't practice my own law, and I certainly am not going to be my own banker. The best bankers in the world thought that CDO's would be a good (if risky) investment. It's arrogant to think that you can evaluate the financial stability of a financial company by asking a couple of shallow questions on an Internet forum. A couple of people have asked whether their money would be FDIC insured in their name - that's an implementation independent question that actually deserves an answer. Even so, how are any of us understand whether FDIC protection has exploitable loopholes? Let's drop the technical posturing and ask deeper questions that have meaningful answers. Yes, you might have to think before you type.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#217

Post by ganeumann »

xradionut wrote: post #153

Unfortunately they need to make their web site cross-browser functional. Doesn't function well in IE8. I still have no idea why I would need their service. My current financial institutions provide awesome service without cryptic bs. Consumer banking and small business banking is simple to the moderately educated.

I think, when you say that banking is simple to the moderately educated, you're objectively wrong. Banking regularly comes out as one of the bottom few industries in reputation and one of the top few industries in customer complaints. A huge number of people in the US really, really dislike their banks.

There are some people who do some work to make sure they choose a bank that will not treat them poorly and then continue to do the work to make sure that they don't incur surprise fees or other pitfalls. Those people think their banks are just fine. But, really, why is all that work necessary? The idea behind Simple is to have a company that treats you well by default.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#218

Post by al3x »

klbarry wrote: post #143

Will Simple ever integrate with, say, kingstrade or another investment program? That [!] would make things amazingly simple. I suppose that would take away their own income, though :)

We've considered it. Not something we're likely to do in the next year, but it's on our radar.

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#219

Post by pinwale »

al3x wrote: post #151
middayc wrote: post #125

looks good, but I'm not sure if necessary very-good-modern-design == simple ? not trying to be down on you, just asking about it now because when I make stuff for others I don't have this corellation and to me the simplest thing is many times command-line.

Hi, cofounder of Simple here. This is a good point. We think there's a difference between "simple" and "stark" or "minimalist". Our goal is to create an experience that's inviting, explorable, and clear. That doesn't necessarily mean doing away with all visual ornamentation. Sure, plain text is "simple", but iconography, texture, and other design elements can contribute to that ideal as well. Thanks for your thoughts…

The "atom" logo on the website and the card have a different number of loops.

Have you guys standardized the number of loops or is the number of loops a clever way of denoting different products?

Re: BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple

#220

Post by mhd »

Joeri wrote: post #129
kr1shna wrote: post #55

How soon can we something like this in Europe?

The banking market in europe is not as unified. Simple would have to approach europe country by country. For example, retail banking in italy is nearly ten times as expensive as in the netherlands. There's a study by the EU on this topic: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/docs/study_bank_fees_en...

A pan-European, unified solution would indeed be rather hard to do, but even going country by country you could earn quite some money. Start with the UK (fewer i18n and support problems), then probably the countries who are paying for the rest of the EuroZone right now.
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