20 ms·

A First Look at BankSimple

477 points by ahhrrr 15y ago

dreamdu5t 15y ago
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.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
  In addition to identifying (i.e. cleaning), we're automatically categorizing transactions.
- jamesgagan 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    > 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 15y ago
      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.
    - jamesgagan 15y ago
      I think you are wrong - From their own FAQ: So, what’s the deal...are you a bank? No, but we replace your current banking relationship. That is, BankSimple provides a modern online banking experience, top-notch customer service, and beautiful mobile apps. Our partner banks hold our customers’ funds in FDIC-insured products and ensure regulatory compliance. BankSimple’s partner banks aren’t large banks, and have been chosen for the safety of their balance sheets and technological capabilities. https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis
- andreyf 15y ago
  If they're a bank, it's definitely possible to use machine learning to categorize the vast majority of your transactions.
maxklein 15y ago
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.
- pingswept 15y ago
  That seems like a fair description to me, but that's exactly what my bank sucks at.
  - Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
    Yeah, that's why we showed what we did. While we also have the banking features you'd expect, e.g. payments and such, we were presenting in front of an industry crowd who are most likely already familiar with said core features but not search or visualization.
    - joelhaus 15y ago
      Very nice UI... any chance we'll see (i) a remote deposit mobile app without deposit limits and (ii) integration with Google Wallet?
      - bergie 15y ago
        I don't think a bank should ever have a mobile app instead of a nicely done web interface. Would you really want to use a bank that only works on iPhone? There have been countless situations where I've had to make transactions in an internet cafe or using a friend's computer.
        jordanlev 15y ago
        Sounds like you've never experienced the joys of depositing checks by taking pictures of them on your phone. I do this now with my current bank and it's awesome. (And I don't think anyone is suggesting that the website is replaced with an app, but rather that the app would supplement the website).
sevenproxies 15y ago
I imagine this is a US only Bank?
- nik61 15y ago
  I imagine it must be US only too, as I've had full Internet banking from my UK bank for more than 10 years. I hope Bank Simple has learnt from the experience of First Direct and the many others in the UK, covering millions of accounts.
- todsul 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 :)
  - mcherm 15y ago
    Unfortunately, banking is a heavily regulated industry and the laws vary (in real and significant ways) from one country to the next. Big, multinational banks do it by opening different banks in each country, each operating according to the idiosyncratic laws of that country but all owned by a parent company that moves capital around as needed. Building a single thing for handling money that works across national boundaries without breaking laws is incredibly difficult.
wccrawford 15y ago
Wake me up when they have the deposit-from-phone working on Android phones.
- throwaway6326 15y ago
  USAA meets your needs today.
  - shadowfiend 15y ago
    Unless you're not related to a ex-military person. Then it meets none of your needs, since you can't use it.
    - bartz 15y ago
      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_main https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/why_choose_usaa_eligibility_... "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 15y ago
        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!
    - brndnhy 15y ago
      I'm a USAA account holder and it is very true: you cannot take advantage of iPhone deposits unless you are military or family. Same goes for most of their insurance products.
simplify 15y ago
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?
joez 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
typicalrunt 15y ago
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.
- rdoherty 15y ago
  mint.com does a pretty good job of tracking your overall spending and saving for multiple accounts.
- saraid216 15y ago
  > 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 15y ago
    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.
braindead_in 15y ago
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.
ThomPete 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    There are lots of banks that could easily outspend BankSimple, what they lack is vision, which is far more scarce than money these days.
nathanwdavis 15y ago
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.
sambeau 15y ago
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/ http://toccame.com/ and here http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/payday/id351013628 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 15y ago
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.
- brown9-2 15y ago
  This sounds like an interesting concept but could be quite dangerous in emergencies or other situations.
  - mdoerneman 15y ago
    But if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. I guess you could still carry an "emergency" credit card; maybe one with a high interest rate to deter you from using it unless its really an emergency.
    - PotatoEngineer 15y ago
      Safe-to-spend is about your current obligations, and other stuff that would reduce your "really available" balance; there's more money physically in the account, in a true emergency you'll rob from tomorrow to pay today's emergency room visit. Of course, now you need a way to pay for tomorrow, but there's still options: skip a bill or two this month, borrow money (from friends, credit card, payday loan, sell your internal organs), work overtime, or whatever.
- al3x 15y ago
  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 15y ago
Griever 15y ago
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.
jimmar 15y ago
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.
- detst 15y ago
  From the customer perspective, they're a bank with an improved website and mobile app. They're actually just a front end to their partnering banks (but you don't need to know that as a customer). Essentially they're a bank with the improved interface you might expect from Mint (minus the aggregation).
- tbird24 15y ago
  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".
- sv123 15y ago
  It's like a bank & mint rolled in to one delicious package.
- quintinsykes 15y ago
  BankSimple itself does not have a bank charter and is providing its services through bank partners. http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/ http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/
jwb119 15y ago
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.
- sambeau 15y ago
  I totally disagree. This is a product for real people not geeks. It's the iPad of banking. Some people are great at managing their money. Most people are not. A bank that designs its systems to suit an average human rather than to suit the bank itself will be a revolution. This is great design finally being applied to something notoriously difficult for most people. The big hurdle will be in getting this out of the realm of the geeks and into the general public. If they can do that it will be huge and then every bank will copy them. I look forward to all banks being simple.
- stdbrouw 15y ago
  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.
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tsunamifury 15y ago
I'm confused, is this an actual deposit holding bank or not?
haydenchambers 15y ago
In video Josh says "you shouldn’t have to do math in front of the computer" and yet when he searches Taxi it just gives a list of the expenditure and no total amount..so.. I have to do math... in front of the computer
mrbill 15y ago
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 15y ago
  BankSimple is a bank, so there's no delay (beyond however long it takes your actual bank to get the data).
durga 15y ago
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/ http://webengage.com/ (disclaimer: it's made by a friend of mine).
evlapix 15y ago
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.
slowpoison 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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 https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis
dprice1 15y ago
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&contentId=140&menuId=47774&pId=50062 http://www.checkfreecorp.com/cda/corp/L5.jsp?layoutId=51501&...). I guess I don't understand where significant revenues will come from in a model like this.
- dr_ 15y ago
  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.
- bostonvaulter2 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure that it would be quite difficult to build a nice common system that can integrate with the backends of many banks.
Hisoka 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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.
- avelis 15y ago
  The early adopters and innovators will switch based on whether they believe what BankSimple believes in. However, I agree that in order for the tipping point to occur I need to have a compelling reason to do all the leg work of switching. Unless, BankSimple comes up with a way to do that for us.
giberson 15y ago
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 15y ago
  They answer a few of these questions on their FAQ: https://banksimple.com/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 15y ago
    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/ http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/
sschueller 15y ago
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 15y ago
  > 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.
  - jh3 15y ago
    Yes it is. AFAIK Wells Fargo/Wachovia still does it.
  - bdonlan 15y ago
    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.
yoshyosh 15y ago
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! :)
jasonkester 15y ago
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.
- fr0sty 15y ago
  There are plenty of explanations that don't involve living paycheck-to-paycheck. 1. You keep money in several accounts (checking, savings, money market, paypal, etc.) 2. You are a contract worker being paid in large installments and you need to know whether your deposit has cleared before paying bills. 3. You have difficulty with fiscal discipline and only leave money for essentials in your account to prevent over-spending. and so forth.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    My general plan is to put everything I'm not going to spend in the current month in my savings and then gradually draw my checking account down to 0. (I have ING Direct and a credit line attached to my checking account in case of overdraft, so overshooting isn't a problem.) I usually keep track of my balance less my bills for the month and divide it by the number of days left in the pay period. Once that balance goes above a certain level I save more. I've been doing this since college, where I would stash away my student loans into savings and transfer monthly installments into my checking. The video wasn't working for me when I went to the page, but if that's how the feature works, it might be neat to have that kind of thing better automated.
blhack 15y ago
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.
- aquark 15y ago
  I more or less get this functionality using Canada Post's ePost integration with my bank's web site, though the implementation could be a lot smoother. I don't get a paper tax bill from the City, I get a notification by email and when I log in and view the message there is a 'Pay bill' link right next to it. Would be nice if it defaulted to as late as possible. I don't know what it takes to sign up as a provider, but relatively few of the companies I regularly pay bills to (and don't use a pre-authorized payment) offer this solution.
- jarek 15y ago
  The problem would be getting all the people who want your money to use this specific new "API" thing. In a banking system where even wire transfers are considered fancy high tech, I wouldn't hold my breath.
  - 15y ago
Cherian_Abraham 15y ago
BankSimple is as someone else pointed out, just a simpler, sleeker interface to banking. Brett King's Movenbank tries to reinvent banking.
haberman 15y ago
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-computer-scientists.html http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-comput...) 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 15y ago
  You might find this interesting: https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger
janesvilleseo 15y ago
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.
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true_religion 15y ago
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.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
  You'll be able to post us checks for deposit.
- bdonlan 15y ago
  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.
mkramlich 15y ago
My two words of advice to BankSimple (well, two acronyms): API and CLI
swah 15y ago
Shouldn't the Safe To Spend have changed when you scheduled 20 buck a payment to adam?
avelis 15y ago
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.

477 points by ahhrrr 15y ago

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.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
In addition to identifying (i.e. cleaning), we're automatically categorizing transactions.
jamesgagan 15y ago
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 15y ago
  > 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 15y ago
    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.
  - jamesgagan 15y ago
    I think you are wrong - From their own FAQ: So, what’s the deal...are you a bank? No, but we replace your current banking relationship. That is, BankSimple provides a modern online banking experience, top-notch customer service, and beautiful mobile apps. Our partner banks hold our customers’ funds in FDIC-insured products and ensure regulatory compliance. BankSimple’s partner banks aren’t large banks, and have been chosen for the safety of their balance sheets and technological capabilities. https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis
andreyf 15y ago
If they're a bank, it's definitely possible to use machine learning to categorize the vast majority of your transactions.

maxklein 15y ago

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.

pingswept 15y ago
That seems like a fair description to me, but that's exactly what my bank sucks at.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
  Yeah, that's why we showed what we did. While we also have the banking features you'd expect, e.g. payments and such, we were presenting in front of an industry crowd who are most likely already familiar with said core features but not search or visualization.
  - joelhaus 15y ago
    Very nice UI... any chance we'll see (i) a remote deposit mobile app without deposit limits and (ii) integration with Google Wallet?
    - bergie 15y ago
      I don't think a bank should ever have a mobile app instead of a nicely done web interface. Would you really want to use a bank that only works on iPhone? There have been countless situations where I've had to make transactions in an internet cafe or using a friend's computer.
      - jordanlev 15y ago
        Sounds like you've never experienced the joys of depositing checks by taking pictures of them on your phone. I do this now with my current bank and it's awesome. (And I don't think anyone is suggesting that the website is replaced with an app, but rather that the app would supplement the website).

sevenproxies 15y ago

I imagine this is a US only Bank?

nik61 15y ago
I imagine it must be US only too, as I've had full Internet banking from my UK bank for more than 10 years. I hope Bank Simple has learnt from the experience of First Direct and the many others in the UK, covering millions of accounts.
todsul 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 :)
- mcherm 15y ago
  Unfortunately, banking is a heavily regulated industry and the laws vary (in real and significant ways) from one country to the next. Big, multinational banks do it by opening different banks in each country, each operating according to the idiosyncratic laws of that country but all owned by a parent company that moves capital around as needed. Building a single thing for handling money that works across national boundaries without breaking laws is incredibly difficult.

wccrawford 15y ago

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

throwaway6326 15y ago
USAA meets your needs today.
- shadowfiend 15y ago
  Unless you're not related to a ex-military person. Then it meets none of your needs, since you can't use it.
  - bartz 15y ago
    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_main https://www.usaa.com/inet/pages/why_choose_usaa_eligibility_... "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 15y ago
      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!
  - brndnhy 15y ago
    I'm a USAA account holder and it is very true: you cannot take advantage of iPhone deposits unless you are military or family. Same goes for most of their insurance products.

simplify 15y ago

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?

joez 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.

typicalrunt 15y ago

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.

rdoherty 15y ago
mint.com does a pretty good job of tracking your overall spending and saving for multiple accounts.
saraid216 15y ago
> 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 15y ago
  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.

braindead_in 15y ago

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.

ThomPete 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  There are lots of banks that could easily outspend BankSimple, what they lack is vision, which is far more scarce than money these days.

nathanwdavis 15y ago

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.

sambeau 15y ago

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/ http://toccame.com/ and here http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/payday/id351013628 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 15y ago

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.

brown9-2 15y ago
This sounds like an interesting concept but could be quite dangerous in emergencies or other situations.
- mdoerneman 15y ago
  But if you don't have the money, you don't have the money. I guess you could still carry an "emergency" credit card; maybe one with a high interest rate to deter you from using it unless its really an emergency.
  - PotatoEngineer 15y ago
    Safe-to-spend is about your current obligations, and other stuff that would reduce your "really available" balance; there's more money physically in the account, in a true emergency you'll rob from tomorrow to pay today's emergency room visit. Of course, now you need a way to pay for tomorrow, but there's still options: skip a bill or two this month, borrow money (from friends, credit card, payday loan, sell your internal organs), work overtime, or whatever.
al3x 15y ago
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 15y ago

Griever 15y ago

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.

jimmar 15y ago

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.

detst 15y ago
From the customer perspective, they're a bank with an improved website and mobile app. They're actually just a front end to their partnering banks (but you don't need to know that as a customer). Essentially they're a bank with the improved interface you might expect from Mint (minus the aggregation).
tbird24 15y ago
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".
sv123 15y ago
It's like a bank & mint rolled in to one delicious package.
quintinsykes 15y ago
BankSimple itself does not have a bank charter and is providing its services through bank partners. http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/ http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/

jwb119 15y ago

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.

sambeau 15y ago
I totally disagree. This is a product for real people not geeks. It's the iPad of banking. Some people are great at managing their money. Most people are not. A bank that designs its systems to suit an average human rather than to suit the bank itself will be a revolution. This is great design finally being applied to something notoriously difficult for most people. The big hurdle will be in getting this out of the realm of the geeks and into the general public. If they can do that it will be huge and then every bank will copy them. I look forward to all banks being simple.
stdbrouw 15y ago
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.

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tsunamifury 15y ago

I'm confused, is this an actual deposit holding bank or not?

haydenchambers 15y ago

In video Josh says "you shouldn’t have to do math in front of the computer" and yet when he searches Taxi it just gives a list of the expenditure and no total amount..so.. I have to do math... in front of the computer

mrbill 15y ago

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 15y ago
BankSimple is a bank, so there's no delay (beyond however long it takes your actual bank to get the data).

durga 15y ago

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/ http://webengage.com/ (disclaimer: it's made by a friend of mine).

evlapix 15y ago

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.

slowpoison 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 https://banksimple.com/faq/#whatthedealis

dprice1 15y ago

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&contentId=140&menuId=47774&pId=50062 http://www.checkfreecorp.com/cda/corp/L5.jsp?layoutId=51501&...). I guess I don't understand where significant revenues will come from in a model like this.

dr_ 15y ago
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.
bostonvaulter2 15y ago
I'm pretty sure that it would be quite difficult to build a nice common system that can integrate with the backends of many banks.

Hisoka 15y ago

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 15y ago
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.
avelis 15y ago
The early adopters and innovators will switch based on whether they believe what BankSimple believes in. However, I agree that in order for the tipping point to occur I need to have a compelling reason to do all the leg work of switching. Unless, BankSimple comes up with a way to do that for us.

giberson 15y ago

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 15y ago
They answer a few of these questions on their FAQ: https://banksimple.com/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 15y ago
  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/ http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/

sschueller 15y ago

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 15y ago
> 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.
- jh3 15y ago
  Yes it is. AFAIK Wells Fargo/Wachovia still does it.
- bdonlan 15y ago
  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.

yoshyosh 15y ago

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! :)

jasonkester 15y ago

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.

fr0sty 15y ago
There are plenty of explanations that don't involve living paycheck-to-paycheck. 1. You keep money in several accounts (checking, savings, money market, paypal, etc.) 2. You are a contract worker being paid in large installments and you need to know whether your deposit has cleared before paying bills. 3. You have difficulty with fiscal discipline and only leave money for essentials in your account to prevent over-spending. and so forth.
- philwelch 15y ago
  My general plan is to put everything I'm not going to spend in the current month in my savings and then gradually draw my checking account down to 0. (I have ING Direct and a credit line attached to my checking account in case of overdraft, so overshooting isn't a problem.) I usually keep track of my balance less my bills for the month and divide it by the number of days left in the pay period. Once that balance goes above a certain level I save more. I've been doing this since college, where I would stash away my student loans into savings and transfer monthly installments into my checking. The video wasn't working for me when I went to the page, but if that's how the feature works, it might be neat to have that kind of thing better automated.

blhack 15y ago

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.

aquark 15y ago
I more or less get this functionality using Canada Post's ePost integration with my bank's web site, though the implementation could be a lot smoother. I don't get a paper tax bill from the City, I get a notification by email and when I log in and view the message there is a 'Pay bill' link right next to it. Would be nice if it defaulted to as late as possible. I don't know what it takes to sign up as a provider, but relatively few of the companies I regularly pay bills to (and don't use a pre-authorized payment) offer this solution.
jarek 15y ago
The problem would be getting all the people who want your money to use this specific new "API" thing. In a banking system where even wire transfers are considered fancy high tech, I wouldn't hold my breath.
- 15y ago

Cherian_Abraham 15y ago

BankSimple is as someone else pointed out, just a simpler, sleeker interface to banking. Brett King's Movenbank tries to reinvent banking.

haberman 15y ago

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-computer-scientists.html http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-comput...) 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 15y ago
You might find this interesting: https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger

janesvilleseo 15y ago

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.

deleted 15y ago

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true_religion 15y ago

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.

Q6T46nT668w6i3m 15y ago
You'll be able to post us checks for deposit.
bdonlan 15y ago
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.

mkramlich 15y ago

My two words of advice to BankSimple (well, two acronyms): API and CLI

swah 15y ago

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

avelis 15y ago

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.