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Some cold water: Square Wallet was discontinued 2 days after this article was published. If that doesn’t convince you to take these puffy “payments revolution”

by abalone 12y ago

Some cold water: Square Wallet was discontinued 2 days after this article was published. If that doesn’t convince you to take these puffy “payments revolution” pieces with a huge grain of salt I don’t know what will. They tend to be big on exciting futuristic hype and pretty poorly reasoned when it comes to actual analysis. For example, it just blasts on through the “PayPal accepted at major retailer!” opening without even touching on whether there’s a reason for consumers to use it. Hint: not much. Credit cards offer rewards and don't require entering your phone number, plus have well established consumer protections. We now know that Simple was incredibly overhyped. It wasn’t a revolutionary un-bank, it was a regular banking UI layer with maybe a couple more budgeting features and a more modern design. It was acquired by a bank -- not exactly a monopoly killer. M-PESA is cool but it is not the “end of a monopoly”. It is a practical solution for an underserved market. The article even notes that fewer people even use banks in the first place. Ergo, not ending a monopoly. Bitcoin, too early to tell what niches it may find (maybe international transfers). But none of its coverage AFAIK has made a compelling argument for why ordinary consumers would generally choose it over cards. Hard to see how that would break that monopoly.

dasil003 12y ago
> We now know that Simple was incredibly overhyped. It wasn’t a revolutionary un-bank, it was a regular banking UI layer with maybe a couple more budgeting features and a more modern design. Simple was indeed overhyped, but your characterization is too far in the other direction. Aside from having a truly great web and app UI in a field with across-the-board atrocious UI, Simple provided three killer features that I never found anywhere else: 1) Link other bank accounts and push/pull money at will. Yes it still is slow going through ACH, and yes it still feels like the dark ages compared to European banking, but it works. 2) Immediate push notifications to my device as soon as charges hit. I know this should be trivial, but other banks I've used do not seem capable of this. Heck they don't seem capable of creating an app that won't crash my phone, but still, Simple does it, often within seconds of the physical transaction occurring. 3) Free incoming wire transfers. There must be some other bank that does this right? Well, I haven't found it. Heck, even when I wired money to my company's bank account to exercise stock options some mysterious fee was taken out somewhere and no one at any bank ever owned up to it. I mean I was literally in international branches and on the phone for over an hour and no one could explain who took a cut and why. Well, with Simple I can wire myself money from overseas, and true to their word, every penny shows up unmolested. They may have failed in their stated goal of revolutionizing the bank industry from the ground up, but also when they said that they probably had no real idea of the regulatory minefield they were getting into. In the end the product they created may be less than we hoped for, but it is a damn good product regardless.
- abalone 12y ago
  Simple did have low fees -- but almost certainly unsustainably so, given the evaporation of their interchange-based revenue model with the passage of the Durbin amendment. Unsustainable pricing does not constitute a good product. As for the others, linking external bank accounts for transfers is actually a super common feature? Not sure what you mean. And lots of banks have apps for checking charges (I don't know about realtime alerts, but that seems like more of a design choice). I think this supports my claim that Simple was more of a premium UI on top of standard banking features than anything really disruptive. But in the end we agree on that.
  - dasil003 12y ago
    What bank lets you link accounts for ad-hoc push/pull of funds? I have had major headaches just trying to get one bank to transfer funds to another, at least involving Wells Fargo. Also not sure why you are using past tense for Simple. I am still using it and the fees have not changed so far to my knowledge.
    - coldpie 12y ago
      Are you talking about transfers between accounts owned by different people, or accounts owned by the same person? I've got accounts at three banks, one of them Wells Fargo, and have never been charged a fee for transferring funds between them.
- mcherm 12y ago
  Okay, I'm not knocking Simple... they did a really good job and have been a competitor to look to. But I work for a major US bank -- actually, forget the anonymity I work for Capital One; Forbes[1] called us the 9th largest US bank but it all depends on how you measure it -- and the features you say cannot be found anywhere else are part of our standard offering for all customers. For instance, you can sign up for a "360 Checking Account".[2] The account is free(no fees), and it has no minimum balance. You wanted the ability to "link other bank accounts and push/pull money at will": you can link up to 3 other bank accounts held in your name at other US banks and freely (in both senses of the word) push or pull money between them using ACH (which will take a few days to clear). You asked for "immediate push notifications when charges hit". The same account offers a debit/credit card and you can set a (configurable) minimum threshold and receive a notification by your choice of email or text message for any transactions over that amount. Set the minimum to $1 and you will get notified for all transactions. You asked for "free incoming wire transfers". This same account DOES charge a fee if you send a wire (and it is not a normally available feature), but receiving wires is free. That doesn't guarantee that "some mysterious fee [won't be] taken out" if someone else like the sending bank takes it, but WE won't charge you. And at the same time, you get a checking account with (free) bill pay, a huge network of (free) ATMs, and you even get paid interest on your balance. None of this is all that special. Sure, they are good practices, and not every bank offers them but there ARE some major players in the industry besides startups like Simple that are focused on offering a good product for their customers. Standard disclaimer: I clearly have a bias here since I happen to work for Capital One. Also I am not authorized to make public statements for them; I am merely summing up the facts you can read about on the linked web page. Or call our customer service line to confirm these details. [1] http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eehd45egjjk/9-capital-one-financial-corp/ http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eehd45egjjk/9-capital-one-fin... [2] https://home.capitalone360.com/online-checking-account https://home.capitalone360.com/online-checking-account
whatevsbro 12y ago
> But none of its coverage AFAIK has made a compelling argument for why ordinary consumers would generally choose it over cards People will gladly choose the most painless viable option available. For example, any business would be happy to not give away 2.9% + $0.30 out of every single payment they receive (and that's even comparatively "cheap"). With Bitcoins, it would be possible to give away only a small fraction of that. The problem is that governments can't stop controlling our monetary systems, lest they just dwindle away altogether, and so, they won't allow using Bitcoins to be as painless as it could.

by abalone 12y ago

dasil003 12y ago

> We now know that Simple was incredibly overhyped. It wasn’t a revolutionary un-bank, it was a regular banking UI layer with maybe a couple more budgeting features and a more modern design. Simple was indeed overhyped, but your characterization is too far in the other direction. Aside from having a truly great web and app UI in a field with across-the-board atrocious UI, Simple provided three killer features that I never found anywhere else: 1) Link other bank accounts and push/pull money at will. Yes it still is slow going through ACH, and yes it still feels like the dark ages compared to European banking, but it works. 2) Immediate push notifications to my device as soon as charges hit. I know this should be trivial, but other banks I've used do not seem capable of this. Heck they don't seem capable of creating an app that won't crash my phone, but still, Simple does it, often within seconds of the physical transaction occurring. 3) Free incoming wire transfers. There must be some other bank that does this right? Well, I haven't found it. Heck, even when I wired money to my company's bank account to exercise stock options some mysterious fee was taken out somewhere and no one at any bank ever owned up to it. I mean I was literally in international branches and on the phone for over an hour and no one could explain who took a cut and why. Well, with Simple I can wire myself money from overseas, and true to their word, every penny shows up unmolested. They may have failed in their stated goal of revolutionizing the bank industry from the ground up, but also when they said that they probably had no real idea of the regulatory minefield they were getting into. In the end the product they created may be less than we hoped for, but it is a damn good product regardless.

abalone 12y ago
Simple did have low fees -- but almost certainly unsustainably so, given the evaporation of their interchange-based revenue model with the passage of the Durbin amendment. Unsustainable pricing does not constitute a good product. As for the others, linking external bank accounts for transfers is actually a super common feature? Not sure what you mean. And lots of banks have apps for checking charges (I don't know about realtime alerts, but that seems like more of a design choice). I think this supports my claim that Simple was more of a premium UI on top of standard banking features than anything really disruptive. But in the end we agree on that.
- dasil003 12y ago
  What bank lets you link accounts for ad-hoc push/pull of funds? I have had major headaches just trying to get one bank to transfer funds to another, at least involving Wells Fargo. Also not sure why you are using past tense for Simple. I am still using it and the fees have not changed so far to my knowledge.
  - coldpie 12y ago
    Are you talking about transfers between accounts owned by different people, or accounts owned by the same person? I've got accounts at three banks, one of them Wells Fargo, and have never been charged a fee for transferring funds between them.
mcherm 12y ago
Okay, I'm not knocking Simple... they did a really good job and have been a competitor to look to. But I work for a major US bank -- actually, forget the anonymity I work for Capital One; Forbes[1] called us the 9th largest US bank but it all depends on how you measure it -- and the features you say cannot be found anywhere else are part of our standard offering for all customers. For instance, you can sign up for a "360 Checking Account".[2] The account is free(no fees), and it has no minimum balance. You wanted the ability to "link other bank accounts and push/pull money at will": you can link up to 3 other bank accounts held in your name at other US banks and freely (in both senses of the word) push or pull money between them using ACH (which will take a few days to clear). You asked for "immediate push notifications when charges hit". The same account offers a debit/credit card and you can set a (configurable) minimum threshold and receive a notification by your choice of email or text message for any transactions over that amount. Set the minimum to $1 and you will get notified for all transactions. You asked for "free incoming wire transfers". This same account DOES charge a fee if you send a wire (and it is not a normally available feature), but receiving wires is free. That doesn't guarantee that "some mysterious fee [won't be] taken out" if someone else like the sending bank takes it, but WE won't charge you. And at the same time, you get a checking account with (free) bill pay, a huge network of (free) ATMs, and you even get paid interest on your balance. None of this is all that special. Sure, they are good practices, and not every bank offers them but there ARE some major players in the industry besides startups like Simple that are focused on offering a good product for their customers. Standard disclaimer: I clearly have a bias here since I happen to work for Capital One. Also I am not authorized to make public statements for them; I am merely summing up the facts you can read about on the linked web page. Or call our customer service line to confirm these details. [1] http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eehd45egjjk/9-capital-one-financial-corp/ http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eehd45egjjk/9-capital-one-fin... [2] https://home.capitalone360.com/online-checking-account https://home.capitalone360.com/online-checking-account

whatevsbro 12y ago

> But none of its coverage AFAIK has made a compelling argument for why ordinary consumers would generally choose it over cards People will gladly choose the most painless viable option available. For example, any business would be happy to not give away 2.9% + $0.30 out of every single payment they receive (and that's even comparatively "cheap"). With Bitcoins, it would be possible to give away only a small fraction of that. The problem is that governments can't stop controlling our monetary systems, lest they just dwindle away altogether, and so, they won't allow using Bitcoins to be as painless as it could.