
A First Look at BankSimple - ahhrrr
http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/a-first-look-at-BankSimple/
======
ThomPete
As someone who have worked a lot for banks and actually already done some of
this work let me offer a viewpoint.

Last year my company managed to get a large Danish bank to implement tracking
into their netbank. This is no small accomplishment, which anyone knowing just
a little bit about how the IT departments in the banking industry normally
works, the systems they work on are arcane.

It took us 18 months from getting the bank to like the idea into actually
getting it launched.

The results have been nothing but extraordinary everyone loves it.

The reason they love it is because it's automatic. They get insights into
their economy that they could not previously get. There is something quite
amazing about seeing your spendings categorized for the first time without you
having to do anything.

The banks have a unique identifier on each transaction that can be measured up
against a category list. This is something Mint and Wesabe can't do because
you can't export that unique identifer from the banks.

The big advantage of BankSimple and why I think it's going to be huge is
because they don't have a legacy system to deal with.

In other words BankSimple can potentially be anything you could ever dream of
a bank being, because BankSimple will be able to cross reference the data in
order to provide not just cost reduction but service improvement.

The banking industry are just waiting to be disrupted by someone like BS.
There are thousands of ways to create a better banking experience. BS is a
good first stab at it IMHO.

~~~
jtbigwoo
I've said this here before, but when I worked at a big bank all the
visionaries weren't worried about other banks, they were worried about Google
and Ebay. The core business of a bank is built on hardware and software. They
knew that a bank built on distributed systems instead of mainframes could beat
the big banks on features and cost. It'll be interesting to see if BankSimple
can scale up fast enough to compete or if it'll attract the attention of
someone with even deeper pockets who can catch up by simply outspending them.

~~~
alwillis
There are lots of banks that could easily outspend BankSimple, what they lack
is vision, which is far more scarce than money these days.

~~~
jtbigwoo
Banks are in a rough spot, actually. The big ones have a _HUGE_ installed base
which makes any changes very, very difficult. My division of the bank had tens
of thousands of cobol jobs that ran daily or weekly. (We also had thousands of
ETL jobs, web apps, etc. that depended on those cobol jobs.) Trying to shift
the core functionality away the mainframe would have been a decade-long
boondoggle.

------
jasonkester
Does anybody actually think this way? As in, do people actually go to their
bank's website because they'd like to spend money and want to find out how
much they have to spend?

Described this way, this just seems like a tool to facilitate a fundamentally
unhealthy way to think about your money. If you're thinking in terms of "How
much can I spend today", you've already lost. (Unless, of course, you're 23,
in which case your entire goal in life should be to sock away enough money
that you never need to ask that question again in relation to food/rent/etc.)

I like the transaction searching capabilities shown in the demo, but I was
hoping to see more info on how to do actual "banking" tasks. Can I initiate a
wire transfer from an internet cafe in Laos? Can people send a check to an
address in the US that automatically gets deposited in my account? That sort
of thing. When these guys came on the scene, I got the impression that that
was the kind of thing they'd be doing better than other banks. Frankly,
sorting my past transactions just isn't a problem I desperately need to have
solved.

~~~
rquantz
This is the myopia of the affluent. Many people, not just 23 year olds, do
live paycheck to paycheck, and need to know on any given day how much they can
spend without overdrawing. The answer to this question is hard to find from
most banks, who make money from fees and have an interest in their poorer
customers overdrawing their accounts by a few bucks so they can charge an
overdraft fee. This is a problem that, for instance, Elizabeth Warren has
talked about a lot.

Banksimple is trying to build a bank that doesn't suck, and banks suck for a
lot of reasons. These features will be helpful to anyone who is living on a
low income, either due to misfortune or choice.

~~~
klenwell
That's a reasonable response and I'm very sympathetic to Elizabeth Warren's
mission. I hold the greatest innovation the financial industry could come up
with, over the long run, is a better educated consumer.

But is this a product that is aimed at low income customers? I struggle to
see, from what's presented here, how that particular demographic will benefit
from on online bank, iphone mobile banking app, or whatever else BankSimple
has to offer.

Has BankSimple cast away deceptive or exploitative fees and the diabolical
legalese of the small print? Have consumer advocates endorsed BankSimple as an
example of a new more consumer-friendly bank? That would be great, if so, for
that strikes me as a core part of Warren's crusade.

~~~
rquantz
I think a bank aimed at providing a good service to consumers, with a great
user interface and features that are beneficial to low income customers, has
the potential to be truly useful to that demographic.

The two things that could get in the way are marketing and access. I agree
that, so far at least, it does appear to be marketing to... well, a hacker
news croud. This may change as they open to the general public. Certainly,
HNers probably make better beta customers for just about any business. Let's
hope they start making themselves known outside the tech field, for their sake
and ours.

As far as access, obviously the poorest of the poor probably don't have access
to an online bank, and if you make the bank unusable to people without a smart
phone, you're limiting it even further. On top of that, it's not clear yet
whether they will have stringent credit rating requirements that could shut a
lot of people out who need a service like this.

My hope is that BankSimple will keep in mind how important they could be to
people who really do need a less malevolent bank. They certainly could end up
appealing only to an affluent crowd, but I get the feeling that they have a
certain amount of zealous righteousness that could translate good user
experience into a truly new type of bank. I do think they are that ambitious,
and I think they have the opportunity to fulfill that ambition. But it's still
up to them to prove that their heart is in the right place.

------
blhack
Here is where I _hope_ / _pray_ /etc BankSimple is going:

I want a personal financial API for myself. If you want to bill me for
something, you don't write down a bunch of text on a piece of paper, stick
that inside of another piece of paper, and then pay somebody to put it through
a slot in my door (along with all of the coupon mailers, prepaid credit card
offers, and VOTE FOR ME! envelopes that I get), you call up blhack's financial
API and request a payment from it.

When this happens, I get an email, or an SMS, or whatever else telling me:

"USBank has requested a payment of $347 from you. They have requested payment
by October 20th, 2011 -- Note: Car Payment"

or

"City of Tempe has requested a payment of $60 from you. They have requested
payment by October 8th, 2011 -- Note: Water Bill"

etc. etc.

I can log into BankSimple and approve these payment requests (just like
paypal, except [hopefully] BankSimple makes it affordable for my city, or my
auto loan provider to do use).

It's an accountant for me. Except it's in one place, and it doesn't cost
anything. There are companies that have tried this, and failed miserably,
mostly because they appear to lack the technical expertise that something like
BankSimple is bringing to the table.

The banking system, right now, is a disaster. The things I'm describing are
all possible right now, but they're an enormous pain in the ass to use.

BankSimple: if you're _not_ doing this, do it.

~~~
haberman
I've had exactly this idea! It's sort of like a credit card, except a "swipe"
just gives the merchant an end-point to send bills to. You still have to
authorize each bill, but your bank could automatically pay any bills that you
haven't contested by their due date (or whatever policy you prefer).

I am TERRIBLE at paying bills on time, even though I always have the money to
pay them. There's way too much diligence required.

~~~
Periodic
I used to be terrible with these, until I sent up a lot of automatic payments.
For the most part this is just logging into the various provider's websites
and setting it up. The one I can't do this for is rent, so my bank has a bill-
pay function that just sends our landlord a check for the rent every month. It
has been very convenient and when he comes by and claims we didn't pay we can
point out it was already mailed and he's the one who lost it (he is very
disorganized).

~~~
haberman
Not all bills are periodic. For example, I've paid a lot of late parking
ticket fees.

~~~
Periodic
I have missed paying a few parking tickets myself. I guess I don't think of
non-recurring payments as bills. That is probably just due to the way the term
is used in popular culture.

------
sschueller
US consumer banking is archaic and can't be fixed with just another bank. The
whole process is broken and it requires an industry change.

I applaud BankSimple for what they are doing but in the big picture it doesn't
solve the major problems.

My biggest gripes with the banks:

\- Can't wire money to someone else without going into the bank and paying
ridiculous fees (Last time I checked, $25 for domestic, $45 for
international). INGDirect attempts to make this better but the receiver still
needs to have an email address and go through a procedure to receive the
money. It's also slow, average is 2-3 days.

\- It's easier and cheaper for me to use checks. It costs me nothing to
deposit it but I have to pay a fee to receive a wire transfer. Wires have a
lot fever errors than checks and a wire of over $5k doesn't have to be put on
hold because the bank has to verify a check. The banks punish you for using
wires instead of checks.

\- When you go online and use bill pay the bank will pay a 3rd party to print
and mail a check!! How is this electronic payment. (This does not apply to
large firms like the phone company which will receive the payment
electronically but small business can't utilize this!)

\- Why no IBAN? Swift requires intermediary banks which charge a fee on your
international wire.

\- No chips on debpit/credit cards. In Europe most banks issue cards with
chips on them. This would eliminate the risk of getting skimmed if only the US
would also start using chips instead of the magnetic stripe.

I just don't understand why the banks do this. Someone enlighten me.

~~~
jessriedel
> When you go online and use bill pay the bank will pay a 3rd party to print
> and mail a check!! How is this electronic payment.

Is this true? That boggles my mind.

~~~
bdonlan
It depends on the payee. Many payees do support electronic payment; banks will
print a check for those that don't. Encouraging people to use bill pay for
everything allows them to collect fees from the payee for those who collect
electronically, and/or save their own processing costs. If they didn't support
_all_ payees, however, people would be more reluctant to use the bill pay
system. So it's a marketing decision, to support payees that aren't capable of
receiving electronic payments yet.

~~~
sschueller
The whole issue is that payees have to pay to receive electronic payment but
can receive check payments for free. That makes no sense to me. It should be
the other way around. Even if a small business wanted to receive payments
electronically the fees are too high for small volumes.

~~~
bdonlan
It might make sense in some cases; it takes less labor to accept electronic
payments than paper-check payments. If the fees cost less than paper-check
processing labor, it makes sense to pay the fees. I agree that it might not
make sense for smaller businesses though - but that's why there's the check
fallback.

------
giberson
Some questions I never bothered to actually ask of my current banking system
probably because I've known people that had accounts with them and have seen
several branch locations but I'd like to ask of BankSimple.

BankSimple is a bank account yes or no? I mean a real certified banking
system? Are they required to meet governmental guidelines of official banks?

What guarantee (if any) do I have that my money will be there in the morning?
Is there some guarantee that if I go to login to bankSimple tomorrow morning
and the domain doesn't resolve emails get bounced etc, would there be any
recourse for me? [again, never bothered to ask that of my real bank but I
suppose a brick and mortar institution instills more confidence]

Visa, MasterCard, Amex... Is the bankSimple card backed by any of these
institutions? Can I walk into to some random QuickStop gas station and pay
using your card like I could with my current bank card?

What kind of development and testing infrastructure do you guys utilize? Are
you able to roll out updates to limited groups of real users so you can test
changes on a small scale before rolling them out to every one? I'm more
curious as to this aspect because I attribute to BankSimple more of a website
or new software company [which I envision bugs and glitches that get worked
out with feedback] rather than a traditional bank [which surprisingly even
though I know is capable of making mistakes, I don't really worry about bugs]

Will BankSimple eventually if not at launch do other bank-y things like
consumer loans, offer savings bonds, etc?

What about fraud protection? What if some one steals my card and buys a bunch
of stuff with it? [Ok, I've asked my bank about this one at least]

~~~
ctkrohn
They answer a few of these questions on their FAQ:
<https://banksimple.com/faq/>

* They are not a bank. They are essentially a web frontend for wholesale banks. Thus they are regulated differently.

* You do have the benefit of FDIC insurance, but it's unclear what ability you have to access your funds directly from the wholesale bank, or whether you are limited to BankSimple.

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
That's correct. We're also using Visa for processing.

You can read more about our partners here:
<http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/>

~~~
harichinnan
How is BankSimple different from mint.com searching through my Bank of America
account statements? Alerts? Goals? I can do all that in mint.

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
We're a substitute for your bank, i.e. you'd use a BankSimple debit card, use
our website or mobile app for payments and deposits, speak with our customer
service representatives and so on.

~~~
harichinnan
My question is what does that buy me? Switching from an established bank to a
mint.com like interface + an unknown bank that holds my deposits. There's no
killer app to sign up for your service. Killer apps that I could think off
are, (Holding deposits in multiple currencies, Savings account like interest
on my checking. Right now the funds I park in checking for immediate expenses
don't accrue interests till I move it to savings, Free payment gateway
integration, so I could transact with anyone having a credit card like paypal,
Free money transfers to any third-party bank in any currency in any
country(you could kill western union with this)). Saying that I could grep
through my statement more efficiently and visualize the data doesn't cut it as
a market disruption.

~~~
ericd
I think the killer app is that this is a bank that actually cares about their
customer's experience (because they know it's one of their big competitive
advantages), and is coming at it from the standpoint of techies who understand
what should be possible. In itself, that's not a checkbox on a feature list
that you can line up against the other banks, but it should show itself in
myriad ways as they rederive what a bank is from first principles. They're
obviously not done. If they keep pushing, that's exciting.

Also, since they're likely to be run much more cost efficiently than most
banks, they should be able to do a lot of things without the normal gotcha
fees.

~~~
cageface
I get all that from First Republic now. Great web tools, no-fee access to any
ATM, and fantastic phone support.

~~~
ericd
I'm not just looking for a bank that does the standard stuff somewhat better,
or is nicer to me. There is a _lot more_ that could be done. Wealth management
related startups like Mint have scratched that surface, but with an end to end
implementation of a bank and all the tools and data that brings, a lot more
becomes possible.

Also, First Republic's site looks like something made with a table layout in
the 90s and left alone since, so I doubt that they're doing anything
innovative on the consumer facing side that requires any amount of tech
expertise.

~~~
cageface
Admittedly my finances are pretty simple, but my bank is something I really
don't want to think about much or spend a lot of time dealing with. Maybe if
someday I have a _lot_ of wealth to manage I'll feel differently. The most
important thing is that I can always get somebody on the phone right away that
is informed and helpful.

First Republic's web tools aren't going to win any design awards but they do
the job and have never given me any trouble.

------
maxklein
I don't get it. I don't get the point of it. Searching through a list of
things? How is that making my banking simpler?

It seems to have turned into a credit card statement search & visualisation
engine.

~~~
pchristensen
After watching the video, it reminds me of the iPad. Doesn't do anything you
couldn't do before, but it does it faster and in a more attractive and
pleasing way. These improvements are so great that it becomes a qualitatively
different experience. This looks about as much nicer than Mint as Mint does
than my bank website, and that counts for a lot to me. I'm eagerly awaiting a
chance to try them out for myself.

~~~
maxklein
Let's compare it to the iPod, for example. Before the iPod, I played music.
After the iPod, I played music - but in a more convenient way.

After this app, I can search my statements in a convenient way. The problem is
that right now I am not searching my statements at all. They seem to be
solving a problem that I have not had so far.

~~~
generalk
I liken it more to a smartphone: before I had high-quality internet access in
my pocket, I didn't care about it. It wasn't a problem I was looking to solve
or a want I had.

Now that I can search Wikipedia or Google at a moment's whim, I find myself
confused when I don't have it.

BankSimple may turn out like this: hardly anyone does this kind of searching
and organizing of their bank statements because it simply hasn't been easy
enough for anyone to care. Once it is, you might not want to go back.

------
jimmar
I haven't followed news about BankSimple, and the firs few minutes of the demo
I watched didn't help me understand what it is. Is BankSimple an actual bank
(with ATM card, routing numbers, etc.)? Or is it a PayPal competitor? Or is it
just a front end that interacts with Banks? Going to BankSimple.com, it seems
like it's trying to be an actual bank. But the demo on the website made it
seem more like a Mint competitor. So, BankSimple is just another bank but with
a potentially super-awesome website? So far, I'm not convinced.

~~~
tbird24
Yes, it is an actual bank. With an ATM card (and no fees). You are right the
demo on the website didn't hint to that too much, but perusing through the
site it becomes a bit clearer.

I also emailed support a while back wondering if it acts as a layer on top of
my existing bank, or whether its a replacement: their answer was "its a
complete replacement".

------
dreamdu5t
Seems like Wesabe hooked up to the bank network.

Search and categorized transactions are cool, but does the categorization
require manual tagging? I'm pressed for time in my day, and I am not going to
spend more than 5 minutes to look at my bank statements, unless I'm
specifically sitting down to budget. My biggest concern with a service like
this is the time it's asking from you. So many services designed to "make my
life simpler" actually require spending more time than just not using the
service at all. For that reason, your mobile app needs to be killer.

~~~
jamesgagan
I came to say the same thing - Wesabe had a similar concept of "safe to spend"
and for me it made it a great app. I was disappointed to see them go under.
Bank Simple doesn't appear to bring a whole lot new to the table.

~~~
whakojacko
> Bank Simple doesn't appear to bring a whole lot new to the table.

BankSimple, unlike Mint/Wesabe, is an actual bank* (*ok not techincally for
regulatory reasons, but you will store money with them). You will keep/deposit
your money there, and be able to spend it via BankSimple-branded debit cards.
Its a whole additional level of integration over Mint/Wesabe, which are just
web frontends to existing bank accounts

~~~
ThomPete
And this is actually very important to realize before you will begin to
understand the completely different paradigm this allow for. It's a very big
thing that it's not "just" a frontend. It means access to completely different
kinds of data.

------
typicalrunt
It's a beautifully clean design. I like the simplicity of it.

What I worry about is the security behind the scenes and the sharing of
sensitive information between BankSimple and the banks.

And trademarking "Safe-To-Spend"? Come on... It's a math equation that shows
how much running profit you have. You don't need to trademark such a thing
unless you intend to use it in advertising or throughout the website, yet I
only see it used in one place. Next thing you know it'll be patented.

Maybe I missed it in the video, but what I would like to see from any of these
types of websites is a consolidated view of multiple accounts and banks. So if
I have chequing and savings accounts at 3 different banks, I would like a
dashboard of my entire spending and saving. It's easy to lose sight of this
when you look at individual bank statements.

~~~
saraid216
> And trademarking "Safe-To-Spend"? Come on... It's a math equation that shows
> how much running profit you have. You don't need to trademark such a thing
> unless you intend to use it in advertising or throughout the website, yet I
> only see it used in one place. Next thing you know it'll be patented.

That's rather extreme. For one thing, they're not advertising and they haven't
launched their website yet. It's also not a math equation: it's a _name_ which
is what trademarks are _for_.

~~~
typicalrunt
What's extreme? I expressed an opinion about a selling tactic used on a
website.

I realize that one trademarks a name, which is why later in the sentence I
used the word "patent" for the process (of the math equation).

Everything in that video was an advertisement. That was the point of it, and
good on them for doing so. The simplicity of the design, words used, and the
trademarks and imagery of the product. The whole point of the video in the
link is to drum up hype and future business.

What I disagreed with was their use of Safe-To-Spend without further
explanation on why it was being trademarked. Otherwise it's just a waste of
money. They could have called the result anything and leave the silly
trademarks for later, unless they specifically had something to sell the
consumer on with that name.

------
sambeau
I love it. It works just like my brain does.

Sadly (for me) it also works just like my iPhone App "Payday" does (without
the live bank ability) that was released last year and then sank without a
trace (albeit partly due to a silly bug).

Being able to earmark money for bills in advance and set yourself saving goals
is really cool (and was also the core feature of Payday).

If anyone would like to try these features before the release of Bank Simple
you can find it here:

<http://toccame.com/>

and here

<http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/payday/id351013628>

Just beware of a small bug that makes the calculations go off if you choose
the last day of the month as Payday. _(Yeah. I know. Sadly the talented
programmer I worked with has had to move onto other projects. Maybe one day we
can fix it. sigh)_

------
mdoerneman
Safe-to-spend balance is great but will it be enforced? I currently calculate
my safe to spend balance but nothing stops me from over spending. I don't have
the willpower. It would be great if the bank simple card will only let me
spend my safe-to-spend balance. So if my safe-to-spend balance is $20 and I go
to an ATM and try to withdraw $50, it will decline.

~~~
al3x
That's exactly what we're doing. If you tell us about your savings goals, you
can then "lock" the goals that you really don't want to dip into if you're
overspending. We'll prevent transactions from going through, in that case. We
keep you honest :)

~~~
bdonlan
Your presentation mentioned that goals may be allocated to CD ladders and the
like - if so, what happens if you 'dip into' this? Wouldn't you be hit with an
unexpected CD early withdrawal fee then?

------
janesvilleseo
I am excited by the 'how much can I spend' feature and NLP search. And this is
the first bank that I would consider moving to. However, my current bank,
rather a credit union is absolutely phenomenal in terms of online banking. I
have had quite a few different banks accounts in my young life and am very
impressed by the level of innovation from a relatively small institution.

My credit union is UW Credit Union. They have recently launched an updated
version of their site as well as previously included Mint like features. It is
great. I feel as though that as soon as UW Credit Union gets wind of BS, if
they haven't already, will incorporate some of what BS is doing.

Banking is definitely an industry ready to be disrupted.

------
haberman
So I'm getting more interested in banking and accounting, largely because a
friend and I are starting a business for the first time. When I saw
"Accounting for Computer Scientists" on HN
([http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-
comput...](http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-computer-
scientists.html)) it was a revelation to me, because I didn't realize that
accounting could be so cleanly modeled as a graph structure.

Ever since then I've been itching to create some git-like software for
accounting, where you have a repository of accounts and transactions. I feel
like there is so much unexplored territory here in terms of analysis and
visualization. For example, I want a way of saying "this insurance bill is for
six months of coverage" and then seeing my bi-weekly breakdown of expenses
include two weeks worth of that insurance bill. I want to be able to tag
expenses as non-discretionary (taxes), periodic (mortgage), or discretionary
(latte) as an easy way of understanding my overall cash flow. I want to be
able to amortize my vacations over the whole year. etc.

I want to be able to view what my hypothetical cash flow would be if I cut out
certain periodic expenses or added others.

A lot of this is probably more complicated than what most people would want to
do -- that's why I think the important part is having a standard repository
model that's easily programmable.

~~~
tealtan
You might find this interesting: <https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger>

------
dprice1
This is something that people would want. But I have a question about business
model choice here, because I'm curious why they chose to become a front-end to
various banks in this way.

Why choose to be a middle-man here (with all of the pain/cost of providing
customer service, etc.) when they could be an enterprise software vendor or a
SaaS provider? Banks don't actually make that much off of depositors, right?
I'm not saying they made a bad choice; I wanted to see if anyone could
rationalize it for me.

Surely banks (especially smaller regional banks and credit unions) would pay
good prices to have this software power their banking websites so that they
could care for their customers in a more sophisticated way. Right now my
credit union, in the Bay Area, has a functional but very ugly e-banking and
bill-pay platform which has clearly been purchased from a third party vendor
and customized (checkfree, I think
([http://www.checkfreecorp.com/cda/corp/L5.jsp?layoutId=51501&...](http://www.checkfreecorp.com/cda/corp/L5.jsp?layoutId=51501&contentId=140&menuId=47774&pId=50062)).

I guess I don't understand where significant revenues will come from in a
model like this.

~~~
dr_
The user experience, from the website, mobile to device to phone calls, will
be a big part of people signing up. There are a lot of people out there who
are unhappy with their banks. If they get enough users to sign up with them,
the actual banks on the back end (which will probably be a collection of
smaller, unknown, entitities), wield less and less power, cause in theory BS
would be able to switch over from one bank to another and the user wouldn't
know, or care. This may allow them to force certain banks to provide revenue
sharing.

------
mrbill
One of the reasons I ditched Mint was because it was 2-3 days laggy due to
having to scrape and process the data from my bank. I have yet to find
anything that beats simply recording all my expenditures in a spiral notebook
and reconciling it with my bank's online account once a day. That, plus "When
I get paid, I pay my bills first". How simpler could it be? (Frost Bank in
Texas, here)

~~~
shadowfiend
BankSimple is a bank, so there's no delay (beyond however long it takes your
actual bank to get the data).

------
yoshyosh
Nice looking site! Why did you not use any green in the UI? For example the
direct deposit of $100 is black and doesn't stand out too much, whereas if it
was a nice green I immediately can make a correlation. For the users
emotion's, seeing a sea of green transactions could evoke more happiness
compared to black. A green background on the "Safe-To-Spend" section seems
more intuitive than a red one, perhaps it can turn red as it gets close to a
'danger zone' of spending (Calculated based on their spending
habits/frequency).

Lastly, everyone keeps mentioning that categorization is very important, yet
categorization isn't that noticeable. I did not notice it until you demoed it.
I might have found it on my own fairly easily if I wasn't being demo'd though,
so its somewhat unfair to say. Rather than having users create very common
categories (food, rent, transportation) make those default and more visible
whether it be adding inset icons, or changing position/color of that section.

Great job! :)

------
joez
I had thought that BankSimple was slimming down the traditional banking model
and passing the savings (in the form of interest) to customers. I still love
that they're tackling Goliaths but they need to be a little clearer on their
vision and value proposition.

~~~
philwelch
_slimming down the traditional banking model and passing the savings (in the
form of interest) to customers_

That's ING Direct's business model. It was hard to beat until the recession
started and interest rates crashed, but even now it's pretty great.

------
simplify
Very interesting. I like the concept of having only one account. The goals tab
looks very useful.

The video states that the "safe to spend" feature calculates recurring bills
and such. Is there a way to view and manage these?

------
avelis
IMO

Banks should be good at doing one thing. Holding my liquid assets. However,
history has proven to us that even that is a challenge for banks. Where banks
thrive in size, most banks lack in vision. I believe that banks are not
software companies, at least not in spirit. Some banks are better at utilizing
technology and others are not.

My challenge to BankSimple: prove me wrong.

We have to remember what a bank traditionally is, break that down, and build
it from the ground up without the walls that immobilizes it today.

------
Griever
Love the design! While I think there is quite a ways to go, I will most
certainly give BankSimple a shot when it is publicly released.

Upon seeing the video though, specifically when he was searching through for
the bar that he went to, I started wondering how long it'll take before we can
actually see precisely what we paid for at said location rather than having to
dig through receipts.

I have no idea when that time will come, but when it does, I'll welcome it
with open arms.

------
sevenproxies
I imagine this is a US only Bank?

~~~
todsul
The guy in the video sounds Australian, but for some odd reason he says 'math'
instead of 'maths'. So you're probably right... boo. Looking forward to the
day when people don't stay in one place and startups begin catering to us
itinerants.

~~~
timcederman
Not some odd reason - he's an ex-pat in the finance industry. It's like how I
had modified my pronunciation of 'cache' (although I refuse to change how I
say 'data').

BankSimple are based in Portland, Oregon (so yes, US).

~~~
Jacked
It's also interesting to note that in the U.S., companies are thought of as a
standalone entity, and referred to in the singular, rather as a group of
people.

So, it'd be "BankSimple is based in...", instead of "BankSimple are based
in...".

When I first started reading things from the UK, I initially thought the
writers simply used poor grammar :)

------
nathanwdavis
I'm quite happy with my bank's customer service, interest rates and fees. And
I use Mint.com to get a view of all accounts including retirement,
investments, etc.

So, from my view, BankSimple just does not provide enough value. Hopefully for
BankSimple's sake, others are not satisfied like I am.

------
slowpoison
Now that I'm getting a better feel of what BankSimple is about, I don't think
it's that revolutionary an idea. I'm not even sure I will use it. Most of what
they showed, and more can be accomplished using Mint. And, Mint offers more
choice by being an aggregator.

~~~
throwaway6326
And Mint lets you pick a bank like USAA, that has great service as a core
competency, rather than trusting a web company like BankSimple that is good at
sleek-looking tech.

~~~
shadowfiend
Then again, BankSimple's _only_ purpose is great service. They delegate the
actual money to a partner bank. So... Yeah. It doesn't really get much better
than that in terms of motivation.

~~~
throwaway6326
Am I wrong in thinking that BankSimple outsourced phone/email support to their
partner banks?

Because as far as I can tell, BankSimple has no interest in service at all.
They're just a shiny tech company.

~~~
shadowfiend
As far as I know, yes, you are, in fact, completely wrong. The only thing
partner banks handle is the actual money. You never talk to them.
<https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis>

------
swah
Shouldn't the Safe To Spend have changed when you scheduled 20 buck a payment
to adam?

------
true_religion
One thing I love is that I can have checks mailed to Bank Simple, and they'd
automatically deposit the monies in my account.

I get quite a few checks, but not enough that I'd want to get a check scanning
machine for.

I'm on the beta list, and hope for an invite.

~~~
bdonlan
Most banks support this I thought - just mail a deposit slip and a check
(signed, with a "FOR DEPOSIT ONLY" endorsement) to the right address. I've
done it before with ETrade Bank and ING Direct at least, and I imagine brick-
and-mortar banks would do this processing if you mailed the check to a nearby
branch.

------
braindead_in
Looks awesome. I would love to see a clone of BankSimple in India. The
bureaucracy will be a pain but if you can successfully navigate it and create
a simple no-frills online only bank, it will be a great success.

------
wccrawford
Wake me up when they have the deposit-from-phone working on Android phones.

~~~
throwaway6326
USAA meets your needs today.

~~~
shadowfiend
Unless you're not related to a ex-military person. Then it meets none of your
needs, since you can't use it.

~~~
bartz
I'm not a USAA member, but that's a complete myth. See this link for the
facts:
[https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/why_choose_usaa_eligibility_...](https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/why_choose_usaa_eligibility_main)

"USAA's investment products, most checking and savings products, credit cards,
life insurance, and shopping and discounts are available to other individuals.
USAA auto and property insurance is not available due to membership
eligibility requirements."

~~~
shadowfiend
Touché sir. I had looked at their insurance in the past and very unfortunately
extrapolated to the entire organization. My mistake and thank you very much
for correcting that misconceived notion!

------
durga
Neat. Now gear up for some honest feedback on your blurb :)

>A First Look at BankSimple

FB: Ok, though "Sneak Peek" is easier to relate to than "First Look".

>Joshua Reich, Wed September 21, 2011

FB: Ok.

>We’ve been very cautious on our blog and website about >talking about what
we’ve been building.

FB: Redundant. Why are you telling me you've been "cautious"?

>Instead, we’ve focused on our vision.

FB: What vision? Mention it. Mention the key value proposition.

> Today that is changing: Below is a first public sneak peek of BankSimple. We
> think it’s far more powerful to show than tell.

FB: Check capitalization. Focus on what the user is getting is getting, rather
than what you feel("we think it's far..")

>And now we are ready to show. We’ve been testing the product for a few months
now, and it has been awesome. >The product isn’t finished. It will never be
finished. We’re constantly improving. But we’ve now reached the >point where
we’ve learned as much as possible from testing internally and in a few weeks
we’ll be shipping > >cards to our first real customers.

FB: Mostly redundant. Only thing that's relevant is "We’ve successfully tested
the product for a few months now, and are looking forward to ship it to our
first customers over the next few weeks. (Click here to request a beta
invite.)"

>This is only the beginning, but it is a tremendous step forward for our
company.

FB: This line might be good for boosting the morale at a company internal
meeting, but it means nothing to the customer. Also it seems to reinforce the
idea that you're not ready yet to grab my attention.

>We will be sharing more important updates with you soon,

FB: Maybe be a little more specific than "soon"? "over the next couple of
weeks"?

> but in the meantime,

FB: OK

>we hope that you enjoy this first look at our product –

FB: Redundant. What's there to enjoy?

>we’d love to hear your feedback.

FB: This looks like a call to action, with no visible action button. What
should the user do to provide feedback? Maybe turn the "feedback" word at the
end of the sentence to a hyperlink that points to a feedback page? Or better
yet, use something lightweight like <http://webengage.com/> (disclaimer: it's
made by a friend of mine).

------
evlapix
I was surprised to see that they put so much emphasis on the searching in the
demo. The real value is in the "Goals" interface - which is well designed.

------
Cherian_Abraham
BankSimple is as someone else pointed out, just a simpler, sleeker interface
to banking.

Brett King's Movenbank tries to reinvent banking.

------
jwb119
sure, there's some cool stuff in here. but is it really enough to make anyone
but a geek go through the hassle of adding yet another banking service?
probably not, imo.

~~~
stdbrouw
You don't add yet another banking service, you switch from your existing bank
to BankSimple. The fact that they're not really a bank but partner with
existing institutions is a behind-the-scenes thing that you never come into
contact with as a BankSimple customer.

------
Hisoka
The value proposition doesn't appeal to me... Slick GUI, and I'm sure you guys
work your asses off, but there's no compelling reason for me to switch to
another bank.. that's a huge cost.. I am get off my ass to another bank, tell
them to close my account, write a huge check to BankSimple, change my direct
deposit, buy new checks, etc... Do you guys replace the checkbook? If so, I'll
sign up. That's my main problem with the entire banking process. I hate
writing checks and signing checks. When I write a check to the IRS and somehow
get a single number wrong, I have to rewrite the whole thing. It seems
strangely ancient that we still have this process in place today.

~~~
ThomPete
I guess it depends on how you use your bank. I never use my bank for anything
but netbanking. In Europe checks are more or less obsolete. I haven't had a
check book since I lived in the US back in the late nineties and early zeroes.

------
mkramlich
My two words of advice to BankSimple (well, two acronyms):

API and CLI

