Agreed, they are trying to buy customers, if it turns out that they can't convert these customers into traders they will lower the rate to a breakeven amount and not care if they lose those accounts.
Which should tell you a lot. I've been through the "Millennial Bank" wringer.
Honestly, checking accounts are all the same. Especially because I use a credit card paid in full every month. It's a holding pool till next month's CC bill is due. Until the US treats debit cards with the same protections as credit, I won't let my debit card near a gas pump or wander off with a waiter or be used online.
I don't know that there's an opening really. That so-called opening keeps popping up since like 2005 and gets "filled" by a SV-backed MVNO-For-Banking and it's just........a checking account provided by some.other actual bank repackaged with a (nice) angular front end and on the AllPoint ATM network with crappy chat customer support.
From the Robinhood website fine print “Robinhood Checking and Savings is an added feature to existing Robinhood accounts and is not a separate account or a bank account.”
So, yes, opening a Robinhood Checking & Savings account does mean that they will open a trading account, because they aren't actually different accounts. (And it's a waitlisted feature where you get moved up the waitlisted by referring others to RobinHood, so it's a clear way of getting the overall service in front of more users.)
Yeah but people do grow up. And I don't know about you, but I've got some super long term relationships with some banks. They are in it for the long game.
(I mean it would be great if there were a bank that did all its customer service over text chat, but that's too much to ask for, right?)
And I’d really wish they’d just stop
The branches have only been to my benefit, never really required, just faster.
I think Simple was supposed to be that. I wonder how they'll respond to this, given that they only recently moved to 2% ($2k minimum).