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I'm sorry, but I want my bankers to be grave old men in suits. I also want my bank to have offices all over the world and I want to know that they are handling
by maxklein 16y ago
I'm sorry, but I want my bankers to be grave old men in suits. I also want my bank to have offices all over the world and I want to know that they are handling money many hundreds of times larger than whatever I have.
I don't want a bank started by a guy called al3x, and who just left twitter. It sounds innovative, but it doesn't sound...dependable.
And if there is one feature I want my bank to have, it's dependable.
- jgilliam 16y agoThe dependable banks... are those the ones that taxpayers just bailed out for hundreds of billions of dollars because they were about to destroy the entire financial system?
- albertni 16y agoNotice how even when they screwed up, they were still bailed out. Obviously I'm not thrilled that any bank would screw up in the first place, but no one's bailing out BankSimple if they do too.
- ihodes 16y agoThat's why I'll be using it first, and lots of my fellow college students who have a lot less to use and a lot more to gain from using a bank like BankSimple. Time is in short supply, and fees eat away at my little pool of cash. I'm willing to take the risk, and willing to put my money in the hands of people who are young, smart and innovative, instead of bureaucratic, slow and set in their ways. Not only that, but if you'd checked, your cash will be FDIC insured through their partners. I certainly don't have a quarter of a million sitting around. Finally, the way things are going now, the government is the only reason those "grave old men in suits" still have your money at all.
- mdg 16y agoBeing FDIC insured is pretty standard nowadays. Also, you only get charged fees if you use a "service" of the bank, such as overdraft protection. If their revenue model of "interest margin" uhm.. interests you, I would suggest joining a local, state-chartered credit union. It is how they have been doing it for years! [EDIT] and if you are young, time is not in short supply and is actually on your side
- dfranke 16y agoyour cash will be FDIC insured through their partners This is not something I'm willing to take their word for without seeing a copy of a legal opinion from someone independent. I don't want to find out after they go under that they've simply been depositing their reserves in an FDIC-insured account with another bank, and that as long as that partner bank stays afloat the FDIC won't pay out.
- ryanhuff 16y agoIs it clear that they are actually going to be a real bank? That bit about FDIC insured through their partners implies that they are more of a marketing driven company that off-loads the actual banking business to real banks providing white-labeled services.
- billpaetzke 16y agoING Direct (ingdirect.com) is an amazing online-only bank that has virtually no fees. They've got amazing customer service. And they have the best bank web user interface I've ever dealt with. BankSimple will need to differentiate themselves from ING Direct somehow. edit: Why the downvotes? I use ING Direct as my main bank. I love it. BankSimple will need to differentiate themselves from ING Direct to win me over. edit #2: I have nothing against BankSimple. I hope they succeed. The market could use another friendly, efficient, tech-savvy bank. Perhaps they will drive innovation in the banking industry.
- sh1mmer 16y agoThe current lot of banks seem really dependable, given recent financial history. Perhaps a bank which is based on customer service (in the age of the internet) and being up-front about their policies and how they will invest your money and reduce your risk is actually what we need. Even if it is co-founded by someone called al3x.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- plusbryan 16y agoLots of potential in this space. But you're right, for some reason, a 502 Bad Gateway error seems less forgivable when coming from a bank.
- tbrownaw 16y ago> I don't want a bank started by a guy called al3x, and who just left twitter. It sounds innovative, but it doesn't sound...dependable. It could sound worse: http://www.bankofinternet.com/ http://www.bankofinternet.com/
- ashishbharthi 16y agoYes I want my bank to be dependable but you don't have any real point why online only bank can not be dependable? Before Amazon came along people probably thought that retailing can be done only in physical stores but it changed. Another example is Netflix over Blockbuster. I think its time for online only bank. I don't remember visiting my bank ever after opening my account with them. We definitely need ATMs but not banking centers.
- stanleydrew 16y agohttp://ingdirect.com http://ingdirect.com is an online-only bank, at least in the US.
- Lewisham 16y agoIf only they got the check scanning thing USAA-style...
- nroach 16y agoSeriously. USAA may be a very stogy institution in general, but their banking arm has been on an absolute roll the last couple of years. Between their iPhone app, a great web site, and excellent customer service, they're setting the benchmark for online banking. And, by catering to service members who are literally strewn across the globe, they "get" remote banking.
- ahoyhere 16y agoI met Alex when he was still doing top-secret compsec work. BankSimple is a lucky company. I love the premise. Hoorah!
- rit 16y agoNot to be smarmy: but that's worked out SO well over the last oh, year or so. The grave old men in suits I mean. You know, the ones who weren't actually able to stay in business and the ones who didn't go under were acquired by another bank that totally and utterly screwed you. Or your bank was simply shut down by the FDIC. It's time for new thinking - FDIC insurance will protect you up to, I believe, $250,000 now.
- byrneseyeview 16y agoWhy do you care about any of that? The vast, vast majority of people don't lend their money to "the bank," they lend it to the government. If your deposits are FDIC-insured, you don't lose them, regardless of what your banker wears or where his offices are. If these guys can beat the big banks on overhead and usability, they'll do extremely well.
- petercooper 16y agoMy mother-in-law thinks that shopping online is crazy because she thinks people can steal her credit card number from over the wires too easily and because you don't know if you're using a "real" shop.
- megablast 16y agoShe is correct. It is a real skill to be able to detect the dodgy websites from the real ones. There are lots of fake ebays out there as well. Sure, you and I can tell from the domain name, lack of SSL cert, spelling mistakes, or such, but so many people can not. Your mother in law sounds smart enough to realise that she can not tell the difference. A rare commodity these days.
- petercooper 16y agoTrusting guarantees is a day-to-day part of life. The majority of people have no idea how a bank works but they still use them! The same argument goes for e-commerce. People should trust their credit agreements and ability to judge situations. If everyone were as "smart" as you say by refusing to interact with processes they don't understand, e-commerce would be dead in the water. It's not thriving thanks to the <1% of us who know how it works in detail :-)
- ahoyhere 16y agoThe thing is, local businesses are also involved in fraud on a regular basis. Ever heard of credit card skimming? Just because your card is in your physical proximation, doesn't mean it's safe.
- retube 16y agomy mother is exactly the same. she thinks that doing anything online is inherently risky. I try to explain that when shes uses to pay for stuff in a shop, or over the phone, her credit card details are being transmitted over the internet too, but she wont listen. There _are_ risks with shopping from your PC. Largely from key-stroke recorders. However, the 2 times I've been victim of fraud were both from card-skimming in a physical store.
- Qz 16y agoOh yes, because the banks seem so dependable right now. Good thing they're such experts at handling obscenely large amounts of money. I mean, it's not like we're funding them with our tax dollars or anything...
- al3x 16y agoHi Max, I understand where you're coming from. The simplest answer is: if you don't want to bank with us, then don't. We don't imagine that we'll replace every bank ever. There are plenty of traditional banks that may be going bust left and right, but hey, you're free to do business with them. A more complicated answer is that BankSimple will have the backing of established, traditional financial entities who are fully FDIC insured from the get-go, so the risk to you as a customer is quite low. There's no such thing as banking without risk, but I understand why you feel drawn to more traditional financial institutions. They certainly do a good job of marketing themselves as stable and dependable.
- sanswork 16y agoThis is a horrible response that doesn't exactly help you build trust or market your new banking product. It starts with a disingenuous comment and it barely addresses the most basic of concerns(FDIC) and does so in a snarky and somewhat rude manner. I would think you would have learned how to handle criticism and concern for a product of yours a lot better than this working at Twitter.
- hoggle 16y agoI read it as trying to be honest which in my book is always a good basis for a potential paradigm shift. Financial world desperately needs to be fixed anyhow - I am happy to hear about folks who accept that challenge.
- luckystrike 16y agoIMO, the response was right on the money (no pun intended). My first thought when I read maxklein's comment was that he is perhaps saying it half in jest. But in case he was serious, I don't think one can just deride a person/organization based on stereotypes. (Hey you programmer of some web application, what do you know about banking, where's your suit and your MBA, you'll do a shoddy job for sure ... etc) Let's see what they come up with and critique/praise them on what they actually do, rather than carrying prejudices.
- 16y ago
- dzlobin 16y agoI'm honestly really surprised at the reaction this has gotten out of some people on HN. Banksimple is only trying to achieve what no other bank thus far has, which is to be genuinely liked by its customers. Everyone seems to be incredibly worried about the dependability of these guys, yet I don't really see what's so 'dangerous' about this situation. All the deposits are FDIC insured, they clearly have their model laid out; interest margins (and interchange fees) have kept banks running for years, and those are banks with likely 50% more operational costs due to running actual branches. It's obvious that opening this sort of bank and not selling high-interest rate loans and not charging fees for everything isn't as profitable as it could be if they did, but is it that far fetched that these guys will gladly make less money, but in exchange offer you service that you can actually enjoy? Zappos could easily save millions every year by shipping UPS ground for everyone, charging for shipping and cutting back on it's customer service, but then it wouldn't be zappos. I, for one, am entirely happy to see a bank that actually took the time to speak with me personally, and offer a banking experience completely unlike what I've had to deal with as long as I have been banking.