Simple Bank Is Closing

I'm a Simple customer and incredibly upset by this decision. For those not familiar with their value add, Simple is essentially "envelope budgeting" built into a banking application. Sure, it's a bank and does bank things. What sets Simple apart is that I can allocate $n/month for an expense and it takes it out of my paycheck and puts it into that expense "envelope". When a charge comes in for that expense, it pulls from the envelope. Other budgeting tools like mvelopes.com and YNAB are great for visibility/tracking, but they don't move your money around. The alternative I used prior to finding Simple was having about 10 different checking accounts and manually transferring money every few weeks. I really don't want to go back to that setup after tasting the good life.

My pitch to the Simple team, or anyone interested in taking this on, is to take the app and build it on top of Stripe Treasury (https://stripe.com/treasury).

I don't know how many Simple employees are in this thread. I'm very sad to hear this news, and I'm sure you were too. Just want you to know that you all made a really meaningful difference in the lives of at least my wife and I. Before I switched to Simple, I had a really hard time budgeting for things/planning for expenses, and was frequently toeing the line of overdrawing my account. I was essentially financially illiterate.

Simple made it incredibly easy for me to get my shit together and start being proactive with my money, so there was really no excuse to not do so. Now, my wife and I are well on our way to an early payoff on our mortgage (~18 years early), paying off our vehicle loans early (~2 years early), having a pretty good safety net in the bank, and being otherwise debt free.

So if you haven't heard it above the sadness of losing Simple: thank you. Seriously, thank you. You really did something great and you should all be proud of what you've accomplished.

I loved Simple for a long time -- I was one of the "beta" customers -- but I switched away from them over a year ago. I'd already been annoyed with them over something seemingly trivial; I go by my middle name and last name, not first and last, and want my credit/debit card to match that, reading "Middle Last". Everyone else allows me to do this and Simple did allow that... until we all had to migrate our accounts from Simple's original "banking partner" to BBVA. At that point they changed my name and refused to change it back after multiple go-rounds (which ended with a rep telling me "sure, we can do this, just fill this out," filling said thing out, and being told "we can't do that").

As with some other mentions here, though, it was killing the ability to have Simple send checks to payees that did it for me. I'd been waiting for years to have Simple be able to accept ebills (e.g., receive a bill from a creditor that specifies an amount to pay and paying that, rather than just paying a fixed amount every period), and they never did; instead they regressed.

But here's the thing: while I'd left Bank of America because Simple's app and design was so much better, I'd never closed my BoA account for the simple (ha!) reason that they could accept ebills and pay them out of my Simple account. This always left me with the niggling feeling that while Simple was better at technology and customer service, BoA was better at... well... banking. And when I checked out BoA after getting fed up with Simple, well, their app was still ugly and had bad UX design, but the functionality had mostly caught up with Simple. It even has goals built into it, if I want them. (I don't, and never cared about Simple's equivalent, so I can't compare the functionality.)

And while there are "bank things" I only do once in a blue moon -- deposit at an ATM, get a cashier's check -- it turns out it's nice to have a bank that, well, does those things. I know there are other banks (and credit unions) that do them, too, and I'm not suggesting BoA is particularly good (or bad) in this regard.

Simple was a promising idea, but I think they made a serious mistake by letting themselves be bought out by BBVA. And while I'd love to see someone else try again, I'm going to be a lot more reticent to move to a new bank just because it gives me a terrific mobile app experience next time around. Simple was a great technology company, but at the end of the day, I just don't think they were that great a bank.

I've been a Simple customer since launch, and have used it as my primary bank since ING Direct was turned into Capital One.

It's mildly depressing to be reminded once again that the dream of startup founders these days isn't to build something, but to sell something... specifically to a bigger company. Which will inevitably delete the thing, once it serves its use. Which is to provide presence in some kind of defensive strategy.

I'm not sure what to use as my primary financial institution now. I have an account with my local credit union, but their app is mediocre. Simple's high quality app was the main reason I used Simple. I really just want an institution + app representation of such, that provides a 21st century experience.

BBVA is also closing Azlo, the business bank that Stripe Atlas uses (used?) for LLCs. Looks to me like BBVA is attempting to annoy as many customers as possible.

I love Simple to death. They overnighted a cashier's cheque for me, for free, on holiday. They've been nothing but kind and I truly hate to see them go. I really really loved being a Simple customer.

Thanks to the countless folks that built a customer focused bank. It's really sad to see Simple wind down, and it's been the best bank I've had the chance to use. Their service has been unmatched compared even to the best local banks in my area. I've been a customer for nearly a decade now - wow. Early on I exchanged emails with Josh and the team not just regarding banking matters, but reporting bugs, design issues, or giving feedback. They were always receptive and I appreciated that they took the time to respond to my messages.

They had downtime once and credited my account $50. Simple, I know, but it was a gesture that really set them apart and humanized the company.

Thank you for starting Simple. Thank you Josh and the rest of the team at Simple: Shamir, Ian C., Brian M1, Toby, Adam, Rachel, Tom, Dustin, Zac, John, Ryan H., Melissa, Ian E., James, Liene, Collin, Matt S., Daron, Cameron, Eric, Jarred, Chris B., Shane, Dan H., Dan D., Robyn, Ryan D., Will M., Brian M2, Michael M., Chelsea, Kelly, Tristan, Will C., Justin, Steven, Matt W., Chris S., Charlie, Mimi, Orlena, Michael E., Krista, Bar, Jen, Matt H., Jake, Matt M.

:')

PS: Startup marketing tip - Add a call to action at the bottom of your email newsletter that reminds your customers to share their experience with their friends and colleagues. Here was Simple's:

> PS - We often have people ask how they can help us continue to grow. Firstly, you're awesome, thanks for asking! Secondly, Its easy–just tell your friends! In fact, you can even send referrals directly from our mobile apps.

I used and was happy with Simple from the very beginning, right up to the point they removed the check sending facility.

It wasn’t the removal of the facility itself that caused me to leave.

It was the utterly disingenuous statement from the CEO explaining the removal.

They got a lot of pushback on this, and ultimately the CEO wrote a defensive followup which was slightly more honest, but confirmed his original disingenuity.

If Simple had sold itself as a normal bank this would have been business as usual. Not good but not unexpected.

However their original sales pitch was all about how they were going to be more honest.

It’s worth noting that this happened soon after they were acquired by BBVA and had a new CEO.

I've been a Simple customer for awhile and it's kind of a bummer and kind of a hassle that this is happening.

I became a customer many years ago while I was homeless and due to a string of incredibly bad luck and wildly poor decision making, I had been unable to open a checking account at any major bank. For whatever reason they gave me one.

Not having to walk 3+ miles to pick up cash from a Wells Fargo spot and having a debit card were literally lifechanging differences.

Nearly a decade later I'm in a much better place. Thanks, Simple.

A while ago, I had a landlord who withdrew rent directly from my bank account[1] and who kept charging me rent after I had left. They also refused to return the money to me and insisted I file an ACH dispute through my bank, Simple. I was responsible for rent for me and my roomate, so being double charged rent for a month meant I was suddenly short two peoples' worth of rent.

Simple was super, super good about the whole thing. They gave me an interest-free loan for the whole amount and told me that if the dispute was successful (which it was), I'd just get to keep the loan. They also put an ACH block[2] on my account, and generally were super responsive in support.

Simple wasn't great for a lot of stuff you could expect from normal banks, like writing checks (for a while, you couldn't get a checkbook from them), cashier's checks, and money orders, but for everything else, they worked really well. I'm kinda sad to see them go.

[1]: I now know this is a bad idea. Always use a 3rd party or pay manually! [2]: ACH blocks are weak, but they're the only sort of protection against malicious actors like this. They prevent a specific amount of money from being withdrawn from a specific party, but there's no way to, say, block all withdrawal attempts from a party.

I’m really sad about this. It feels like when Google Inbox shut down. Like yeah, some other services will have similar features, but not as well-done. That’s gotten a lot of praise already, but what really made Simple special for me was the language and design they use, it was so so good. I’m so thankful that it existed, it really helped me learn to manage my money.

The linked thread has been removed by the moderators and the entire subreddit is locked.

You can view a backup of the original thread below (will take a few seconds to load).

https://www.removeddit.com/r/SimpleBanking/comments/ksize0/s...

Edit: Here is another article with the same information:

https://www.androidpolice.com/2021/01/07/simple-bank-is-shut...

I spent four years working at Simple, there are a lot of great humans there. Please reach out if there is anything I can do to help.

As for the product, it was great to work on and there was so much potential simply left on the floor. Really a shame to see that none of that will be realized.

Simple was a game-changer for our personal finances. We tried Mint but it was too much work. When I look for "alternatives to Simple" all I find are other online banks. What I want though is the budgeting part. Monthly expense allocation + safe to spend. Anybody here know of a good alternative to this?

I got this email recently. I do find it sad. I really enjoyed using simple for how easy most things were.

They did eventually depreciate their mail a check feature, and they had some weirdness about being able to download a cancelled check of checks they sent.

I still have my account, and has planned to still use it, but with a lot of things becoming harder over time. (To use the check example, I had to email their support and wait several days to get copies of the checks)

I will switch back to using my local credit union more.

They really had such an easy and excellent service for so long!

Nothing in banking that is good and pleasant to use for clients ever lasts indefinitely. This is a business that can only survive on making customers’ lives miserable. I’ve been a Simple client for some time after closing PNC. It’s always been just “out of the way” and has never caused problems or cost me money unfairly. Which is why I’ve been waiting for them to either be acquired by a bigger, horrible bank or go under for some time.

I joined a long time ago when I was broke and they were one of the few online banks I found with no minimum balance or fees and had a good network of ATMs near me.

Then they stopped allowing me to send checks, so I had to open an account with another bank just so I can have checks when I need them.

Then in the few times I needed support, I couldn't get it. One time I tried to buy a car and was having trouble with the payment. I tried to call them and it turns out that their support phone line closes at 3pm PT! How is that acceptable?

I'm glad they're shutting down, because it'll get me to actually fully switch over to another bank, which I expect to be a lot of effort.

Posted about this when I got the email - I used and loved Simple - it helped me budget and save through UX decisions that worked with my psychology and their customer service was real people, real nice, real fast.

I also know people that have worked there that /loved/ it before the acquisition that said it went downhill culture-wise quick thereafter.

If you believe in your product and your people, getting hired by BigCo is almost never the optimal solution for actually growing your product, but I don't blame people for taking their exit checks.

(Some exceptions withstanding - MS seems to be doing a good job with GH so far for example)

I had Simple from 2012 until 2015. I was buying a house and the unusual parts of the bank were making it difficult to get it done, so I transferred everything to a local bank. I remember liking it a lot at the time, but now I'm having a hard time remembering what set it apart. I think by the time I switched, most banks had all the features that made it unique.

Earlier today I opened an Axos account and transferred everything over to that from my Simple account.

Direct deposit, Venmo, Paypal, everything's now been switched to Axos.

Simple really helped me get a handle on my finances and turn my net worth black, so I'm sad to see this.

Moved my budgeting from Simple to YNAB a few years ago, but still sad to see Simple go. I was a big Simple proponent for a long time (even wrote some hacky automatic goal transfer software[0] before they introduced Expenses). Hopefully the employees can carry the great UX spirit of Simple to their next endeavors.

[0] https://github.com/bi1yeu/simple-autogoals

Simple was one of the few US-based checking accounts that required US citizenship in order to open a new account (a Visa or a Green Card was not sufficient): https://medium.com/@bartclaeys/simple-bank-discriminates-aga... (this has only been an issue since BBVA acquired them).

Wow, this is heartbreaking. Simple was extremely instrumental in my budgeting success. Anyone have a bank similar with features like "expenses" and "goals"? I honestly can't imagine not being able to use simple for my savings anymore.

I will miss them. I remember getting a debit card and a thick piece of cardboard with a rubber band that you could use as a wallet. I still use that thing now.

ouch...the one bank with a really nice user facing app...hoping to hear more details

Simple is without a doubt, not even close, the best bank app I have ever used. Simple as a bank is probably one of the worst banks I have ever tried to deal with. I very regularly wish that their app was a layer on top of other bank accounts, such that I could view my Chase account but from the Simple app.

Unfortunately, their banking business (not the app) was their core business, and they were absolutely awful at banking.

I am a customer of Azlo, Simple, and BBVA.

Azlo has been consistently pretty good for my main business account; the only mixup I've had with them was entirely because BBVA is actually their underlying bank.

Simple was excellent while they were my primary account; I got married before they offered joint accounts, and so migrated away.

BBVA has been consistently awful to work with as a business bank. Unable to get online access working for a corporate account, I was stuck calling them every month to manually pay a line of credit or get dinged for a late payment. Their service reps are friendly, but unempowered to do much. All this for a side business--it hasn't been worth the effort. I really don't want to spend the time and effort migrating accounts _again_ but will do so if the conclusion of Azlo closing is to just drop us all into BBVA's system.

The best I can say for BBVA is that they're less bad to work with than BoA and Wells Fargo.

On the personal banking side, Schwab has treated me extremely well for years; I have no complaints. They feel like the Amex of bank accounts.

I loved simple, have used them for ~10 years, and gotten 5+ people in my circle to use them, they were the greatest. But at a certain point simple's budgeting system breaks, once you have another card. I would make payments per transaction on my CC to maintain that tagging data within Simple for reporting.

For years I was left unsatisfied with a tool that managed expenses with multiple cards and I found it half a year ago in CoPilot: https://copilot.money

Great app and handles internal transfers (ie payments to a card or another account) with grace. Smart rule system, recurring transactions, etc. Mint on steroids. Highly recommend for people like me looking for tools to replace simple.

Note: I am in no way affiliated with CoPilot, just found them super useful for that function as Simple wasn't hitting it.

Shameless referral code for a free month: 7UWQ7W https://copilot.money/link/cXPAZ3zJ3QT2N4LS6

I didn't even know about this bank, but based on the comments, seems to have had a major impact on people's lives.

I essentially do what Simple provides on my own, but realize that takes radical discipline. Not everyone has that, but sounds like Simple "hacked" people's habits towards saving. I consider that a "super power" so I'm sad to hear they're closing.

I direct deposit to two HYSA accounts in the same bank. One is my "current expenses" account and represents my projected expenses/budget for the month. The second is my "long term" account that represents savings for long term goals. At the end of each month, if there's money left in the current account, I move it over to the long term. The long term is then invested in brokerage accounts (because I've saved up for an emergency fund and house down payment, which remain liquid).

Oh and 401K money is taken out before I ever see it.

Simple was good, but they missed a couple of things... First, 2FA. FFS, I don't know who on Hacker News needs to hear this, but _I REALLY DONT want my identity or money secured by my cell number_. I'm incredibly tired of required SMS "2FA", and one of the major reasons I left Simple was their refusal to implement U2F or even TOTP. I'm really hoping there's regulation on this at the federal level soon because it's getting out of hand.

Second, their App never really caught up with the budgeting offerings of Mint. And finally, the Billpay integration never caught up with Ally Bank, which is what I ended up switching to. Ebills should be able to be delivered and paid straight from your bank account in 2020. Simple never unfortunately managed to get this integration.

I originally liked Simple but hit some rather unsavory bugs like getting a notification there was an error with a transfer that later went through (around 30-40 minutes later when their job queue apparently caught up) and bugs where a transaction would show as pending and cleared at the same time (there was this weird 4 hour window when I got paid)

Either way... I ended up splitting between Ally and Discover. Paychecks go into Discover and a scheduled transfer (the sum of all budgets) goes to Ally along with a separate savings transfer. The end result is Discover is "safe to spend" but there's less granularity in the buckets/envelopes

I've been with Simple since it was invite-only, and used them actively since. Really disappointed. Probably going to switch to Cash App? It currently functions as a secondary fun-money account.

Any alternatives that offer a similar Goals and Expenses feature?

I've got to say, as a Simple customer since 2013, I'm not really surprised by this. BBVA has steadily gutted what made Simple a great service, and in the last 12 months it became extremely apparent that this service was no longer a priority for them. Between bizarre UI updates, and a huge degradation in customer service quality, I saw the writing on the wall. See ya Simple, it was nice while it lasted.

One of the big things I'm going to miss is: No overdraft fees.

Simple is one of the only banks that doesn't do overdrafts. If you try to use your debit card and have no money, it fails. If you try to send a payment, or a autopay tries to withdraw, and you don't have the money, it fails.

Looking at replacement options, I've kind of honed in on Alliant Credit Union and PNC. PNC was close in the running because of their "virtual wallet" tools years ago when I was last looking, but they really have no presence in my area.

Alliant has a $25 overdraft fee, limited to once a day (IIRC, been looking at a lot of options). PNC has ~$38 fee, limited to 4 times a day.

Now, I don't overdraft often, can't remember the last time. But when I'm moving to a new bank and trying to get everything set up, chances are high and I know getting $150 in overdraft fees is going to piss me right off. And they do offer some protections like free pulling from a backup account or one of their credit cards if you have it before doing a full overdraft.

But almost $40 for an overdraft makes me question the personality of this bank.

Any Portland residents want to comment on the state of the Portland tech scene there? The Oregonian article makes it sound slightly dire...

No big new tech company has emerged in Oregon since the 1990s, though, and the old ones are steadily vanishing. The $8 billion sale of Wilsonville-based Flir Systems, announced Monday, leaves just two publicly traded technology companies in Oregon.

I'm a little surprised about the outpouring of love for Simple. I've been a customer for a year or two and have always been super frustrated with the performance of their web & mobile apps, and their customer service.

I only joined and stuck around because the 1% interest rate was better than anything else I could find at the time. Since their rate dropped I transferred all of my money away.

I'm with Yotta & Onefinance today.

Yotta offers >1% interest rate when you calculate it all out. Definitely not anywhere near the 2-3% the people are mentioning in the the comments. They also just recently dropped the # of tickets you get on deposits above $25k which doesn't help.

One finance offers a 1% rate up to $25k & 3% on an account that can be funded by diverting up to 10% of your direct deposits. They also have "Pockets" which I think is similar to what Simple did but tbh I never use any of that stuff...I'm just a rate chaser.

Is there something that’s reasonably close to Simple as a replacement?

I had Simple bank back when it was new on the scene and kept it for a number of years.

As a homeowner it was annoying at times, I remember paying taxes and tags for vehicles was a problem because Simple didn't want to work with government entities so ever year I'd have a hassle of using another bank to do that. The limits on money spend was also a problem, I remember getting a new HVAC system in the house and having to split payment over two different days. Rather embarrassing for me to the installer voicing concerns, annoying that I can't spend my own money when I obviously have it. Finally lack of paper checks you wouldn't think would be a problem these days but a couple times of year it still came up and I was forced to use another bank and transfer funds.

It was an interesting experiment but after I moved to USAA (or any other real bank) in comparison all my troubles just disappeared.

Ive used Simple on and off since the beta. Customer service was always top notch. One time they had a few hours downtime and they just gave me $50 for the nuisance. Didnt ask, just suddenly gave me $50.

Also, their reps were also very good at gif communication. Id never before interacted with a company’s support team through multiple gifs.

I have a Chime account. It's pretty good except for one untenable problem. They routinely reject paper check deposits via the app, and will not tell me why.

I recently had a U.S. Treasury check rejected by them. And in multiple messages, they refused to say why. Their reply apologized for both the inconvenience and that they couldn't tell me the reason for the rejection.

I've never had an in-person/traditional bank refuse to explain their actions before this. The rejection might be acceptable with an explanation. The refusal to explain is unworkable. And the explicit apology about the refusal to provide an explanation actually makes it even more frustrating.

The problem with "well I rarely need to deposit paper checks" is that what if I have some other problem? And they just refuse to explain themselves?

This is disappointing news. Their app is pretty nice and they made shared banking with my wife easy. I also have a backup Chase account. I just fired up their mobile app for the first time in awhile. It's a slow and cluttered mess. Hopefully a spiritual successor to Simple will emerge.

I was an early customer of Simple, and transitioned to Capital One after the sale to BBVA. The killer for me was that Simple would no longer send out checks through the mail, which was how I had become accustomed to paying my rent.

They also pushed for customers to not use personal checks for anything (at one time they didn't even offer them), which I now find kind of foolish. So after they ended the check-by-mail service, there was no way for me to get a check to my landlord. And it was just kind of a big middle finger to someone who had been a loyal customer.

I guess in the days after the Great Recession we were all hoping for some kind of financial revolution that never came. Simple closing today seems to certify that those hopes are gone.

This is disheartening, but not terribly surprising, news.

I was with Simple back in 2014. I left in 2015 then came back and left for good in 2016.

On one hand, no other bank has tried so hard to make financial responsibility a first-class citizen in their mobile and web apps. They made setting aside money and budgeting expenses very, very seamless to do. I wish other consumer banks learned from what Simple was trying to accomplish. Simple also had the most pleasing and tech-forward mobile and web apps of any consumer bank; it was a step above everything else. Lastly, Simple's customer service was unrivaled. Being able to use a chat platform that didn't suck _and_ get connected with a human within five minutes was not possible elsewhere back then.

On the other hand, some of Simple's business decisions were...frustrating.

It took me _over five days_ for them to replace a lost card. Most banks can replace overnight for an additional fee; Simple didn't even give you that option. This was pretty frustrating given that they encourage you to use their card for everything.

I couldn't pay a bill larger than $3,000 one time (which was ironic given that I was paying off a credit card). I don't remember why, but I remember thinking "this is dumb; any bank would process this payment no questions asked." Trying to pay this bill through Simple was a massive exercise in frustration.

I actually encountered _multiple_ bill pay failures with Simple. Paid bills would never get funds disbursed. Payments would show up multiple times in my ledger. The worst of the failures I experienced happened when I paid one of my student loans but found out _days_ later that the payment actually never went out due to a "technical error." This caused me to miss a payment and eat a late fee. I actually landed up speaking to their CEO at the time about it over the phone; he gave me $50 as an apology consolation, which I thought was cool.

They also didn't support eChecks, which meant that every payment I made would take _at least_ three days to clear through ACH. I remember being very relieved when I switched to Chase and could process payments in 24 hours.

I'm _still_ salty about a failed database migration they performed which took out their backend ATM services while I was on vacation. Couldn't get money out or move money in for a day or two. This would _never_ happen with a bigger bank, and even if it did, they have brick-and-mortars as a fallback.

After BBVA pseudo-acquired them and their legendarily-prompt service went south, I switched over to Chase and never looked back. After Simple removed their Bill Pay feature, I wondered why they just didn't get fully-acquihired or something.

IMO it seemed like in 2019/2020 with the advent of "consumer banking apps" that what the once "groundbreaking" features Simple provided had basically become commonplace. Or because of other banks at least half implementing them - it stymied the number of people who would actually switch to Simple or showed that people just didn't really care. At the end of the day, Simple provided a slick UI to get people to use their bank and it seems like there just wasn't enough of an edge to drive users to their underlying financial institutions. Privacy definitely wasn't as much of a big deal back when Simple started?

Got the email earlier today, been a customer since 2012. Love their app, savings plans, etc.

Felt like the first time a banking app was modern, and even my BoA and Discover apps are woefully behind Simple to this day.

I doubt BBVA will provide a good replacement sadly.

Simple has been on a downwards trajectory for a while now. Not handling wire transfers was infuriating when buying a house and refinancing and the recent removing of bill pay/check sending was egregious. You want to know how they tried to spin that? They sent out an email saying “we now support paper checks!” And then at the bottom said something like “and bill pay is going away kthxbye”.

YNAB “manages” all my money now so thankfully switching isn’t terrible. I just have to switch my direct deposit, my utilities, and my CC’s and I’m done.

I’m sad to see Simple die but it’s had one foot in the grave for a while.

I loved Simple when it started, but had to transfer away in 2018 after they rolled out some new security system which started flagging withdrawals from nearby ATMs, at stable local businesses, which I'd gone to for years, as suspicious transactions. Each time, I'd have to call to get my card unlocked. After three times, I begged their support people to please contact someone up the chain know I was closing my account because I literally couldn't get my money out. They were sympathetic but refused to countenance the idea that the transactions were incorrectly categorized.

Getting a Simple account in 2015 with its envelopes helped me get my spending under control and develop better financial habits. I'll miss the envelopes, but the budgeting habit already moved out to a spreadsheet.

Simple had some good ideas, but I eventually moved on to more "grown up" banking solutions. What caused me to leave was the inability to write paper checks, which I only needed once or twice a year but is a useful and reasonable-to-expect feature in a "checking" account. Going to a web form and requesting they mail a check on my behalf wasn't an adequate replacement for my needs... scenarios like money in a Christmas card, security deposit on a desirable apartment that a landlord isn't going to hold for me without that deposit, etc.

Used Simple for a signup bonus, was fine, was weird that I could only see certain details (the exact amount of ACH trial deposits) in the mobile app instead of the web app.

They declined to open an account for my wife (who was also angling for a signup bonus) with no explanation; response to a CFPB complaint was "we will not explain"; no response to a CEO email. Was very weird. Nothing apparently fraudulent or weird in her application, credit, chexsystems, etc., just a "we don't want your wife's business".

Anyone else remember getting $20 for just opening a Simple account when Google Wallet shut down back in 2016? Thank you Simple for the good 4 years.

I was a Simple customer in their beta days, then stopped using it for a lot of things, eventually though right as they moved their partner bank to BBVA I switched and started using Simple heavily.

However not too long thereafter they got rid of their Bill Pay/Send a Check feature instead expecting me to send physical checks myself... which meant I immediately went looking for a new bank.

So I found Sofi instead.

Time to open a new bank account and find a new home. Simple has been really great for me and I am very disappointed that it is going away.

I loved Simple, but had to move back to a traditional bank when I got married. Lack of joint accounts was the major problem, but it also turns out being able to write your own checks instantly has some real advantages (over waiting for 1+ weeks for delivery). I did love the good things about it though, and def sad to see it wind down.

While it was never my primary bank, I’ve been a Simple customer since it was in beta and still known as Bank Simple. I’ve searched my email, checked the announcements in the app, and checked the website, but there’s no mention of them closing. You can even still apply for accounts online. Talk about mismanagement!

any speculation on why it failed? i was fairly optimistic on Simple a year or two ago and then they fell off the map

Why can't the community buy it or it be turned into a steward owned company? This seems like a terrible loss.

Off topic: What are folks using these days for banking? Is there a good, online bank with a decent savings and checking yield? I've been keeping my 6 month reserve in a checking account for a while because I'm lazy but this article has me considering a switch.

I've had simple for the last 5 years and this is truly upsetting. No other app I've seen tops their mobile app and their customer support is by far the best experience. Any other replacement banks that have joint bank accounts? My wife and I love it.

> The company struggled to compete as larger banks adopted many of the convenient online banking features Simple helped pioneer.

Is there a general lesson there when a company's USP is UX (alone)? Interested in hearing what startup-ers think about that.

Simple has been on the decline for a long time, I remember before their acquisition, their support was great and slowly it declined. I think for a long time Simple has just been a nice UI and slowly fading away. This is the last lap for them.

Simple was the best banking experience I ever had. USAA or someone should buy their tech.

Even crazier, they seem to have un-sent the email? I got a notification that I had an email from Simple, but didn't check it immediately, and now it's completely gone from my email account. I've never seen that happen before.

Damn; I finally joined Simple last year. Has anybody had experience with Varo Bank? That's the closest alternative I could find. What else do you all recommend? I've looked at Varo, Vio, HmBradley, and Discover.

Lots of people in this thread really loving being a Simple customer. I have a "big box" bank and I don't really know if I'm missing out. What should I look for in a bank? What made Simple stand out?

I highly recommend Charles Schwab for a checking account in the US. https://www.schwab.com/checking

(I was a Simple customer at one point)

Just received an email that Azlo is shutting down as well. BBVA not holding back.

I hope they don't do the same with Azlo, because that would suck a lot.

I enjoyed Simple for their amazing app, but in the end found that the 1 or 2 times a year I sold something for cash on Craigslist meant I always needed a branch. So I gave up and moved to a credit union.

Related ongoing discussion about Azlo: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25676301

There is a weird trend rn with new banks popping up with a combination of A)high APY B) high cashback rewards C) Fractional shares

Of course each app/bank also has a seemingly lucrative referral program.

They all seem to also be back by the same handful of banks. Sutton Bank, Hatch Bank etc.

Some examples:

HMBradley

Points Card

TomoCard

CashApp card

SabelCard

OnJuno

Stash

Etc.

Do any checking accounts offer and API? I love Simple and I think I could easily recreate the Safe to Spend and Budgeting functionality easily with a lightweight rails app for myself.

Sad to see them go, happy user for a long time as well -- anyone know what went wrong? Why did they sell to BBVA / is it just financially infeasible to run a web-based bank?

This absolutely sucks. I love their service. Great job ya'll.

Knew it was only a matter of time, and told their support on multiple occasions they had so much potential but there were simply to many fundamental issues they weren't addressing to get mass market appeal and be sustainable. I was one of the first customers, (early beta), and was absolutely thrilled to try it out back in 2011. It had a lot of shortcomings, but was hopefully it would iterate quickly, and was a beautiful modern interface compared to the horrible experience at the big banks (Which are still awful in comparison but a million times better now). There were so initial deal breaker issues, notably no support for written checks, no option to deposit checks in person (only mail), and very low mobile upload limits, slow transfers (no next day transfers for a fee like others offered), no joint checking, no business accounts, and countless other issues. The lack of checks and joint checking were major issues that while I dealt with, were things that prevented any non beta/technical friends and family from ever considering it. I'm someone who certainly very rarely writes checks so I was an ideal customer, alas when I did need to write checks... it was because I had to. Maybe you need to write a check for a service provided on the spot, buying a house at closing, among other scenarios. And for the the average person there are countless more use cases. Simple's approach was to avoid fees, and if they allow checks (other than mailed certified checks) then people could overdraft and thus need ability to charge fees, and the safe to use amount would be off. While I get that, if I over draft, I'm fine paying for it, and I understand if I write a check the safe to use would be less. Instead of dealing with those issues they just ignored them. There were times when needing to transfer money next day, and was not an option. Once again, when that need arrises it's because it's needed and thus completely fine paying for it accordingly. Support was amazing back in 2011 and 2012, but as they grew support become much worse since that level of support is hard to scale. Once again I was an ideal user in most ways, ad I HATED having to go to branches, and would much rather mobile deposit all checks and rarely ever used cash, but because of the very low deposit limits had to often mail in checks instead which was no good. If you don't have branches you have to have high mobile limits. Luckily other banks did offer such high limits. I spent so many years providing long emails with all the issues in detail as I wanted to see it grow and improve, and while over the years some of the issues were resolved, other deal breakers remained and then they got new ownership and still no big changes, so new it was only a matter of time until it would shut down.

On a related note, anyone got a good bank recommendation?

Azlo, another bank built on BBVA is also closing: https://azlo.com

Azlo is also closing. They just sent word today. I wonder if it’s coincidence or they are owned by the same parent company (BBVA).

Good. I tried to sign up and they rejected me because I am not a citizen, although I live in the US on a greencard.

Interestingly, my wife and I both have separate Simple accounts. I haven't gotten the email, but my wife has.

As of last week they had multiple job openings still posted on LinkedIn - I guess this moved pretty quickly

Does anyone have thoughts on a replacement? I'd love to stay with a more modern approach to banking.

Been a huge fan of SoFi. They have similar features to Simple but offer a wider range of services

Can someone explain what Simple was so I might understand the significance of their closure?

I wonder if something like Simple’s Goals could be implemented using Stripe Treasury.

Sorry to learn this... I enjoyed being their customer.

Are there any good alternatives?

A sad day.

fml

We changed the url from https://www.reddit.com/r/SimpleBanking/comments/ksize0/simpl... to what seems to be the best article about the subject.

Envelope budgeting sounds like something grandma did. I just get enough total money in a bank account to pay bills.