Redneck Bank | Hacker News Reader

Redneck Bank

redneck.bank

119 points_salmon45 comments

I hope they run Red Hat on the back end.

For those who never installed Red Hat in the late '90s and so probably have no idea what I'm talking about, see this [1].

[1] https://imgur.com/gallery/yX5uw

Sounds more Cockney to me.

Not to split hairs, but I would expect more rhyming for Cockney. Examples: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/guide-to-c...

They say they're an FDIC member.

The FDIC says [1] Redneck bank is another name for All America Bank, which has been insured since December 22, 1969.

There are at least two populations that would like this, IMO: a hipster crowd who are not in any way like rednecks, and the country crowd who look like rednecks to outsiders and call themselves rednecks, but who insist, if you ask them about it, that they're being tongue-in-cheek about it. In my experience, the latter group is having more fun.

[1] https://research2.fdic.gov/bankfind/detail.html?bank=20093&n...

I don't know if I'd ever actually sign up for Redneck Bank, but I definitely would never have heard of All America Bank without it. Maybe that's their play here.

> the country crowd who look like rednecks to outsiders and call themselves rednecks, but who insist, if you ask them about it, that they're being tongue-in-cheek about it.

Those are hipsters.

I'm not really a "redneck" and even though I moved to "town" when I was still knee-high to a grasshopper (and later to "the city" to get myself some learnin's and an edu-ma-cation), I am absolutely a four-wheel truck drivin', Harley-Davidson (1690cc cruiser) ridin', ole country boy (and yes, back in high school my pick-'em-up truck had a shotgun rack in it).

While I'm not sure that I, personally, would choose to do my bankin' down at the "Redneck Bank", you can bet yer ass I've got a bunch of friends and family members who would walk in and sign up right now if they built a local branch in my hometown!

From someone who actually banks with them (as All America Bank), here are the attractions:

- decent interest rate on savings, used to be 2.5% not that long ago, but now is 1.75%. I don't blame them, I blame the Fed.

- Push/Pull ACH with moderate restrictions and no fees.

- No incoming wire fees.

- No foreign transaction charges (but 75 cent fee for OS ATM useage).

- No fees for the first 10 BillPay transactions, which is full featured. This is fine because you can pay credit cards and the like with ACH.

- Generally low or no fees (but there is an overdraw fee).

- Functional, reasonably snappy online banking without being needlessly complicated.

- You can link someone else's account to yours so it appears like one of your accounts, with instant transfers.

- Reasonable security without being too annoying.

- If you ring them someone in the office will pick up the phone after a few rings, no call center, no stupid pointless IVRs. Sure sometimes they sound really hung over from the night before, but generally they're very nice.

- Online secure messages are responded to promptly and you can do most things on it, none of this "please ring..." nonsense.

- You can fully avoid the "Redneck Bank" marketing identity if you so choose. There is no mention on statements or online banking.

I've been with them for a few years and I have no plans to go elsewhere.

Nice interest rate. Their parent bank https://allamerica.bank/ has branches in Oklahoma and does agricultural financing as well as normal bank stuff. it's a clever way to diversify and get a wider online presence beyond Oklahoma. The fly is a great touch.

According to the fine print, you need to keep a balance of $10,000 to get that 2.25% rate. There have been points in my life when I've had that much money in the bank, but this is not one of them.

"Earn 2.25% APY when you have up to $10,000 in your account. Amounts over $10,000 will earn 0.50% APY." suggests that you get 2.25% on a balance _up to_ $10,000, not that that's the minimum for that rate.

Ah… You're right. My mistake.

It's the other way around. They only pay the 2.25% on the first $10k in your account. Any balance above that gets a lower rate (0.50%)

Inflation is 2.3%.

What's your point?

I think his point is that it's a pittance of an interest rate and the bank paying any less than that is basically stealing your money.

Interest in almost all dutch banks is zero, or damn near zero (.1%), if not going negative soon enough.

Is there an option that gives me the liquidity of cash / bank balance, without the loss of money, that isn't a bank account?

Best I can get in an immediate access bank account here is 1.35%. Cash is 0%. I can't pay rent and bills with anything else that I'm aware of.

IE, Is there a way that doesn't result in someone 'basically stealing [my] money', or am I screwed no matter what?

> To receive rewards from Redneck Rewards personal checking account, participants must: Make 10 Redneck Bank VISA debit card transactions per monthly statement cycle. Please refer to #9 below.

Heh...that's quite a bit, considering the opportunity cost of each debit swipe is 2% cash back from credit.

The credit union I use has the same 10 transaction requirement to get rewards checking, but it might be a better deal because there's no balance cap on the interest rate (although, the rate isn't as nice), and you can use their rewards visa (credit, 1% back) to make the transactions.

I try to put my low dollar recurring charges on it, cell phone, personal hosting, isp, etc, which gets most of the way, and some out and around small spending gets me over the hump. I'd rather not have to jump through this dumb hoop, but it means less transfers back and forth between checking and saving and less worrying about timing on big payments.

That's pretty ordinary for a checking account incentive. 10 x $0.50 Amazon gift cards will do the trick.

Has anyone gone down the rabbit hole of looking into this bank?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/redneck-bank-352214aa/

Edits (in chronological order):

- This is the bank responsible: https://www.bankonitusa.com/

Right on!

And the CEO, Shawn Braden (evidently the founders granddaughter) - has a rather thin profile.

Unusual for a savvy FinTech-ish firm > https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawn-braden-8a4467120/

Still, good on you Mustang, Oklahoma!

I like the animated fly.

Then again, if a bank with a website like this did something silly like, uhh, transfer all my money to Nigeria, could I really complain about it with a straight face?

If they're not a real bank they're gonna get reamed for the FDIC logo.

Jeff Foxworthy said the essence of "redneck" is a "glorious lack of sophistication." Dunno if thats still the case, but its a marketing vein that might have a drop in it again since he tapped it out back when.

This sort of marketing appeals to lots of people, including myself and many of the people with whom I interact on a daily basis. Of course it could only work online, but we've seen enough problems with online banking that online-only kind of scares me... still, I'm paying more attention to this than I've paid to banking in quite some time.

My tagline for my website is "Rantings of a Redneck Techno-barbarian". I've been hoping there was juice here again; glad to have a confirmation.

Jeff Foxworthy studied at Georgia Tech and worked at IBM before launching his comedy career.

While I recognize that this is (probably) a real bank, very high on my list of things that I definitely do not want from a banking website is "make me feel like you're not serious".

But ya see, with Redneck Bank, the sheriff's gonna understand if, when they lose yer money, ya just shoot them banker fellers. That tends ta make 'em real serious 'bout what counts in bankin'. Ya know, not losin' peoples' money.

I wouldn't mind the copy writing too much. I'd pay more attention to eg sensible password policy.

Basically, if they allow the same strong passwords as eg GMail, I take that as a good sign. If they have silly restrictions like lots of banks, that would weight much higher in my estimate of them as an online bank than the silly copy.

Love the edginess and design, but taking the user off-site (to the oflows.net domain, whatever that is) for sensitive application forms doesn't build a lot of trust imo.

It's nice when companies don't take themselves too seriously.

This case, it reminds me of a convenience store chain in West Virginia in the 90's that came out with a line of flat potato chips under the brand "Carl's Roadkill Cafe." It was successful enough to spawn companion products like Dust Cutter So-dee-pop.

Is this like the bank version of a MVNO?

Sort of, yes. I think they’re owned by the same holding company as Bank of the Wichita’s.

When I applied for a mortgage a few years ago, I was asked to provide some bank statements. The underwriter saw the letterhead from Redneck Bank and told me the underwriting process is no joke and asked for real non photoshopped statements. After some convincing we finally closed a few weeks later.

Wait, you actually use this bank?

Yes, perfect comparison. This is super popular nowadays. Fintech startups like Varo, Sofi, Chime, GreenDot, and I think Simple all use the FDIC of their 'partner' banks. IMO not much risk, all my money is in the first two I mentioned.

So is this a strategy that Apple could use with Goldman Sachs to turn Apple Card into Apple Bank?

Sure. Basically all these new checking and savings accounts that are coming out, Robinhood, Google, Credit Karma, etc., are actually being serviced by a real bank.

Apparently rednecks have bandwidth and time to burn.

Home page load: * 48 requests * 5.68 / 5.69 MB transferred * Finish: 42.53s * DomContentLoaded: 1.67s

It didn't load at all for me.

See also, the excellent Lings Cars https://www.lingscars.com if you are intrigued by this kind of web design.

Lings Cars is a stone cold classic. I love introducing it to product designers for the first time. She's been running a successful business since 2004 with this site.

Grassy arse - Ling

Thanks! - Ling

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