Simple Blog
The blog of Simple, a US online bank that launched as BankSimple, with product announcements for apps, goals and analytics.
What HN says
HN links Simple mostly when people ask for banking recommendations; commenters praise its clean interface, no fees, goals feature and support, though it is US-only.
Stats for nerds
119HN people shared it
67linked in comments
792story points
Jan 2021last shared
Top posts on HN
- 1BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple1 person · 387 points · first shared 2011 · 277 comments on HN
- 2The Next Chapter2 people · 78 points · first shared 2014 · 30 comments on HN
- 3Announcing The Simple iPhone App2 people · 56 points · first shared 2012 · 40 comments on HN
- 4How We Measure1 person · 46 points · first shared 2014 · 35 comments on HN
- 5Announcing Photo Check Deposit2 people · 34 points · first shared 2012 · 63 comments on HN
- 6Simple -- Announcing Goals3 people · 27 points · first shared 2012 · 21 comments on HN
- 7The Big Banks1 person · 19 points · first shared 2012 · 6 comments on HN
- 8BankSimple invites first customers; rebrands itself as Simple48 people · 16 points · first shared 2011 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Building Analytics at Simple5 people · 15 points · first shared 2015 · 6 comments on HN
- 10Infrastructure as Code at Simple2 people · 12 points · first shared 2014 · Discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
- nlyMar 2016
Also
https://www.simple.com/
http://starlingbank.co.uk/
https://www.ffrees.co.uk/
https://www.monese.com/
Not to mention a few of the big boys have "Internet only" brands: First Direct (HSBC), Smile (Co-operative Bank), etc. These typically have their own customer service and distance themselves from their parent operationally, while still leaning on that reputation.
One thing that concerns me about investing in Mondo is that their only fruitful exit strategy might be being bought out. People are notoriously relunctant to switch current accounts, and a bad decade for public faith in banks might mean people will likely stick with names they know.
They're also at least a year from launch afaict, and Android doesn't seem to be a priority. They could miss the boat.
- cocoflunchyJun 2015
This sounds like http://simple.com for the UK. The bit that worried me was
we plan to make all the money we need from fair and transparent overdraft charges
... which means they have a strong incentive to have their customers overdraft.
Simple's model feels more sustainable:
Although we love technology, we don’t knock tradition. In the past, banks
made most of their profits off interest margin—the difference between the
amount of interest they make on loans, and the interest they pay customers
on their deposits. Our partner bank splits this interest margin with Simple.When you swipe your debit card, the merchant pays a service fee
(called interchange) to the issuing bank. Our partners split this
revenue with us. - clauretanoDec 2013
Very inconvenient. I wish more banks had the feature of Simple[1][2] where from the mobile app, you can lock and unlock your card at will. They emailed customers proactively regarding the Target breach and suggested that if you are really worried, you can leave your card in a locked state and then unlock it only when you need to swipe it.
Since they by default send a push notification on every transaction, it'd be overkill as long as you respond quickly in the even of an unauthorized one.
[1]http://www.simple.com
[2]simple is fantastic for a whole host of reasons. Check them out. I'm not affiliated in any way, but have been using them as my primary bank since early on in their beta. - toomuchtodoDec 2013
> but what differentiates citi/bofa/wellsfargo/bancorp etc? Not much that I can see -- unless you're a high net worth individual, there's little reason for most people who don't eg have international banking issues to bother with them.
I actually switched from a big bank (PNC, great service but slow on the tech side to evolve) to Simple [http://www.simple.com]. I get a debit card, beautiful mobile and web apps, and I can do everything I could with a regular bank except going to a branch. And I never go to a branch (mobile deposit, ATM network, debit card, done).
Their support is excellent as well, something I'd never get from Amazon or Google.
- nodesocketNov 2015
Interesting video and concepts with Datomic, but a few questions.
* Why did Nubank decide to attack the Brazil market instead of US? There have been attempts here in the US; Simple (https://www.simple.com), Standard Treasury (http://standardtreasury.com/), Final (https://getfinal.com/), and Coin (https://onlycoin.com/).
* Isn't reinventing the engineering wheel; in terms of Datomic and a not popular language like Clojure a potential huge distraction to the ultimate goal of building a bank? The problem space is big and hard enough without rolling/maintaining/testing your own database engine and obscure language framework.
- cs702Sep 2016
The very smart, very shrewd, hard-working folks at Simple tried building a new kind of bank... and found out that the business of banking is FAR more complicated than it seems. Ultimately, Simple decided it would be best to sell to a giant established bank, BBVA (USD 800 billion in assets):
https://www.simple.com/company/the-next-chapter
The OP is a short ambitious document written by two guys who think they can do better. They think they can build a new kind of "bank for tourists." So far, they have a landing page and a mobile app: https://www.wrinq.com/ ...They will need a lot of luck.