Finn looked really cool, but the biggest problem is that it didn't integrate with existing Chase accounts; it was a totally separate financial account. I wasn't about to create another checking account, but a more modern app for an existing account would have been very welcome.
But, at the same time, Chase's main mobile app is one of the better ones among a sea of banks making bad apps, so maybe it wasn't totally necessary.
Yeah I'd hardly assert that Chase's is the best mobile banking app, not by a long shot, but its Good. Its got above average feature parity with the website, generally stays up to date with the latest features available on the platforms (updating to the iPhone X screen size quickly, touch id, useful widgets, etc), and is nice to look at. I especially like that they try to customize the background pictures with your location and time of day, and if you live in a big city its cool to see some of the sights around town in the app. Haven't seen any other apps do that, and its appreciated.
I have this problem a lot with the Chase app. For me at least, it seems to be tied to using my thumbprint to login. If I enter my password manually it goes right in.
I've found that this happens to me using the Chase app over the weekend (usually Saturday) around 2 AM - 5 AM Pacific Time. Maybe they do scheduled maintenance then? Chase should let people know if that's the case.
I don't use them for banking, but using their app for my Chase credit card is a pretty terrible experience. Their notifications are super unreliable, not only sometimes skipping random transactions but also unsubscribing me from everything occasionally. I'd much rather have an app that lets me do fewer things but that I can actually rely on.
It had some deeper financial analytics capabilities that you'd traditionally only get with a service like Mint or a more modern bank like Simple, such as flow analysis (seeing comparisons between amount-in/amount-out and extrapolating for the month) and expense categorization analysis. More importantly, it had a Great UX; the primary Chase app is Good, but not Great, and having a Great UX encourages the usage of these features to better maintain strong financial health.
Banking is ripe for disruption but the powerful banks have built a huge moat to solidify their power. The actions of Goldman, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley etc directly led to the mortgage crisis but the leaders of those banks convinced the government their continued existence was vital to the economic health of the world.
The regulations that the government implemented in response, Dodd Frank and before that Sarbanes Oxley, have actually just made it harder for startups to challenge the status quo. Starting a new bank is so regulated that most financial startups would rather buy an existing one than create a new bank.
The big banks pretend like the regulations are curtailing their behavior while pushing for them behind the scenes because they have teams of compliance people that can understand how to make money no matter what the regulations are. They would be dead and gone if the free market had been allowed to run its course.
JP Morgan and Goldman were completely solvent during the entire financial crisis, they were forced to take bailout money by the government (to disguise which banks were actually insolvent).
Where do all these nonsense memes about the 2008 crash come from?
They were, they made a lot of money betting against the housing market while simultaneously selling the products they were shorting. But many banks were insolvent and would have toppled after Lehman if the government hadn’t stepped in, and operating in an environment where their partners were gone would’ve made things much more difficult for Goldman and JP Morgan. It’s not nonsense.
> If AIG fell it would have quickly led to both JPMC and GS collapse too
Neither had enough exposure to fail due to AIG failing. Rita payouts to Goldman were less than $5bn, much of that being passed on to funds. I don’t recall numbers for JPM, but worst case they wouldn’t have been able to acquire like half of the banks they bought.
How? Any disruptive service would have to interface with the legacy, non-disrputive players. Visa + Mastercard have a monopoly on credit transactions. First Data + company have a monopoly on debit transactions. The banking of America is still backed by COBOL + mainframes and it hasn't changed yet for a culmination of a bunch of reasons. I just don't know when it ever will...
Ripe because the current system is inefficient and stacked toward the power players. Robinhood has a lot of users because retail investors are desperate to invest money for a profit. The banks underwriting the deals scoop up all the best opportunities before it ever filters down to normal people. With the oppressive regulations on new banks that won’t change any time soon.
meant to lure millennials with zero fees and emojis
and then
By killing off Finn, the bank removes some confusion over the product: While the app was designed for the digitally-inclined, users still had access to the bank’s ATMs and tellers, although that access wasn’t heavily promoted.
So I'm curious here, would signing up for a bank account through the Finn app have been classified as a different type of account to get "zero fees"?
Asked perhaps in an illustrative way, if I sign up for an account through Finn and get zero fees, would my girlfriend be able to sign up for a checking account at a physical location the "good old fashioned way" and be able to get the same zero fee checking account type?
As a millennial trying to be more attentive to the minutia of his personal finance and uses his current bank's mobile app quite heavily for everything from transfers to travel notifications (so my card doesn't get flagged if I'm visiting family five states down I-35), I'm missing what the appeal of Finn was supposed to be. They had my attention at zero fees, and immediately lost it at "emojis".
Or is my confusion because I'm one of the "older millennials" and therefore not the target market for this service?
Zero feel typically means no monthly fee to have the account, no per check fee and free ach transfers in and out with a limited number of linked accounts. Accounts like that can be had a most banks now days. They still charge fees for overdrafts, wire transfers and other services.
I know what "no fees" means, what the article doesn't help me understand is what the real value add to my banking experience Finn would have been that I wouldn't get from walking into a brick and mortar and opening an account with a banker sitting across from me and opening a checking account and using the "normie" mobile app.
Nothing. You save yourself the hassle of going to a bank. But you can open accounts with most banks online now. I think this was part of a larger streamlining of the JP Morgan Chase Brand.
For those interested, Schwab has one of the best modern banking experiences. For those of us that like to travel a lot (ATM withdrawals, foreign transactions, etc.) Schwab is awesome. There are no minimums, fees, foreign transaction fees, and all ATM surcharges are reimbursed(yes even $10 ones abroad).
The app works great and allows you to connect to other banks directly and move your money between the two as if they were the same bank.
Downside is no physical locations, so cash has to move through another bank account then get transferred into Schwab.
Checking and saving both yield about .5% which is way better than big banks typically, although lower than inflation/Tbills.
Can’t recommend it enough for people that don’t enjoy a $10 a month charge for the bank to profit off of your deposits.
But, at the same time, Chase's main mobile app is one of the better ones among a sea of banks making bad apps, so maybe it wasn't totally necessary.