I feel like banking is a bad problem for the modern startup that relies on speed of implementation over security concerns.
I'll be happy to see them win, but I'd rather not be a Guinea pig.
A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
41–50 of 56 posts
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#42I am typically very lenient guy, but in this case I would say this is complete fail. What Simple is trying to do is extrapolate the problems people have with bank - e.g. overdraft fees, evil sequencing of transactions etc and market service based on it - whereas they have their own list of shortcomings and (as of now) lack of ability to be a real alternative to be a Bank.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#43I am not in US, so I cannot open an account here. But Prima Facie, this seems like another Bank to me. Ofcourse, they are trying to simplifying a few things. But they do not have the kind of scale larger banks do, say Citibank etc.
So I'm guessing once they reach a level where they have a lot of customers, their system will be forced to become more convoluted due to operational overhead.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#44So it's an analytics front-end for an account with Bancorp? (http://www.thebancorp.com/about/)
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#45I've been exploring the idea of starting up a bank. The big banks here in my country are so inefficient and I'm hoping to simply make a better banking experience for consumers, hopefully via their mobile phones. Can somebody shed some light on a few questions I have? #1: I have absolutely no business background. Do I need to get an MBA in order to understand how banks work from the back-office, and maybe the legaliti…
Q1: MBA - I guess no :). But it will be good to have very strong hold on how financial system in your country works.
Q2: Scaling a Bank is not easy (but ofcourse possible). Reason is Regulations of each country is different. That is true with any Financial Service. People say PayPal is global, yes they are but they have to adhere to local rules.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
It might help to try to understand the target demographic rather than handwaving them as idiots. I have a decent amount of money, and I'm most certainly fed up with my institutional bank. An increasing share of my money is making its way into my Simple account for a number of reasons: 1) Banks do have you opt-in for fees, but typically through opaque changes to terms and conditions. When my bank was acquired, I start…
> Simple has ATMs everywhere since it's part of Allpoint To be frank with you, Allpoint is pretty shit wherever I've lived. I don't want to have to go to some dilapidated 7-11 to use their ATM. I want to use any ATM I see on the street with no fee. It turns out I could get that with either USAA or, apparently, Charles Schwab. > Their apps are just beautiful. Dealing with financial matters is probably the thing I drea…
> I want to use any ATM I see on the street with no fee.
Mechanics Bank in the SF bay area will pay you back for the fees you accrue using others' ATMs. It's only up to $15/mo (I think) but that's more than enough for me.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#47I tried signing up for Simple, and the entire experience was pretty terrible. I realize that they're a new company trying to tackle a big problem so I wanted to cut them some slack, but the ways in which they messed up are hard to forgive. Last July, I got my invitation to use Simple.com, which I'd been really excited about for over a year. I start signing up, and instantly I'm surprised by how their signup form is b…
I have only had great experiences so far with their customer service. Let me count the ways:
1. My girlfriend really wanted to join too. I sent them a message about this and they sent her an invite that day (this was before invitation were available to current customers).
2. They emailed me to ask why I wasn't using my account. I said I don't have direct deposit because I'm a freelancer, so it didn't make sense for me to use until they had check deposit. They said that makes sense, and a few weeks later they invited me to beta test their check deposit feature.
3. I asked about the possibility of giving goals the ability to withdraw a percentage of check deposited rather than a certain amount every day, since my income is variable. I got a response from someone saying they had just put in a request for that feature, and it should be on the horizon.
4. They've happily answered all sorts of weird questions regarding my particular circumstances, and indulged me more than any customer service people I've ever talked to.
This service is not perfect yet, but every indication I've seen suggests everyone there really wants to do well, and they really are trying to build a customer focused bank. After trying it out for a few months, I'm planning on moving most of my banking to my simple account.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#48I've been a Simple customer and have nothing but good things to report. As a bank, they provide pretty much all basic services, except for perhaps cash deposit (something I haven't needed to use in years). You can use any ATM out there. You'll probably get charged a fee by the ATM itself, but that's something I can live with. Most of the time, I try to get enough cashback when I get my groceries to cover my very minimal cash needs.
Where Simple really shines though is in two areas:
1) General non-sucky-ness. It's not a single feature, but rather the quality of the overall experience. The support features makes it really easy to write a textual query right in the regular dashboard or mobile app, and they usually reply within hours. There's no calling robotic phone lines and spending 30min in menus or on hold… The website itself is beautiful and extremely usable. Unlike, say, Bank of America Online, the emotion you feel while navigating simple.com is delight, not frustration and exasperation.
2) Goals and Safe to Spend. When you open either the app or the website, there is a very visible balance amount. The trick is, it is not your actual account balance, but rather what Simple calls your Safe-to-Spend balance. Simple has a goals section, in which you can set up goals you wish to achieve by a certain date, as well as reserved funds (eg. an emergency fund). Simple takes all of that information into account, as well as recurring bills such as rent payments and subtracts it from the money it considers safe to spend.
It's great, it has really had a positive impact on my finances. I've never been good at budgeting, but through the way Simple handles Safe-to-Spend, it has kind of forced me into better consumption patterns.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#49It figures that the guy who started this is Australian. Australia has some of the worst banks in the world in terms of customer service. Last week I was in a bank (Commonwealth Bank of Australia) with my wife attempting to negotiate a better deal in terms of her account fees, which I believe are exorbitant at approx $10 per month for a basic savings account w/online banking. She'd been with them for 25+ years and had…
How do I down vote you? You're writing off an entire country's banking system with one personal example?
I have my own example of banks in Australia, and they're some of the best I've ever dealt with.
Banks in the US on the other hand...
There's no reason to have an account with a bank in the US when you can have one with a credit union. Unless you're really rich and don't care about fees.
Re: A Financial Service for People Fed Up With Banks
#50I've been exploring the idea of starting up a bank. The big banks here in my country are so inefficient and I'm hoping to simply make a better banking experience for consumers, hopefully via their mobile phones. Can somebody shed some light on a few questions I have? #1: I have absolutely no business background. Do I need to get an MBA in order to understand how banks work from the back-office, and maybe the legaliti…
You should. The market could benefit from new participants.
1. You don’t need an MBA to understand banking. While the importance of regulation and compliance (“legalities”) is paramount, it isn’t something you learn from an MBA program.
2. It depends. Simple isn’t a bank. If you were successfully issued a charter, you could likely surpass Simple, et al. from an innovation and feature perspective. FYI: http://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/banking_12779.htm