Hacker News Reader

Comment by earle | Hacker News Reader

And have been waiting,.. and waiting,... and waiting.... shocked nobody has come around and beat them at their own game it's been so long...

View on HN

I'd argue that USAA is already trouncing BankSimple.

USAA competes with the same sort of value proposition (convenient banking with great service, but without a B&M presence), and is a fortune 500 company with millions of happy customers.

It's hard to find discussion about retail banks on the Internet without finding satisfied USAA customers telling their stories.

I agree -- I've been a USAA customer for twenty years, and they by far have one of the best mobile banking products around. From what I've seen on BankSimple, USAA has already been there for years.

Yup. I've been a USAA member for about 10 years now and I've never once had an issue with their service, not to mention that I know I can always get an actual human on the phone who is happy to help me. As someone who travels quite a bit, I can't imagine using any other bank.

In the end though, I can't see how having another option in the marketplace could hurt.

Any company seeking to offer better banking services gets a high five in my book.

Beat them at their own game ? BankSimple is a front-end for existing banks. They will still get their cut and control much of how this works.

+1 I wrote this above. They are just a front-end, nothing more.

Saying they're "nothing more" detracts from the value you can provide with a frontend. Mint was a frontend for Yodlee and sold for $170m.

That's true, but I guess I expected a true online bank who was dedicated to customer satisfaction, not just a middleman.

I feel the same way... but building a bank from scratch is very very complicated, so I understand.

I am sure it is very complicated, but they need to be careful with the hype, especially since it the meanwhile some other online offerings (such as ING direct) have been getting better, to the point that it seems to me that the opportunity to truly impress is getting smaller.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com