Comment by giberson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by giberson | Hacker News Reader

Some questions I never bothered to actually ask of my current banking system probably because I've known people that had accounts with them and have seen several branch locations but I'd like to ask of BankSimple.

BankSimple is a bank account yes or no? I mean a real certified banking system? Are they required to meet governmental guidelines of official banks?

What guarantee (if any) do I have that my money will be there in the morning? Is there some guarantee that if I go to login to bankSimple tomorrow morning and the domain doesn't resolve emails get bounced etc, would there be any recourse for me? [again, never bothered to ask that of my real bank but I suppose a brick and mortar institution instills more confidence]

Visa, MasterCard, Amex... Is the bankSimple card backed by any of these institutions? Can I walk into to some random QuickStop gas station and pay using your card like I could with my current bank card?

What kind of development and testing infrastructure do you guys utilize? Are you able to roll out updates to limited groups of real users so you can test changes on a small scale before rolling them out to every one? I'm more curious as to this aspect because I attribute to BankSimple more of a website or new software company [which I envision bugs and glitches that get worked out with feedback] rather than a traditional bank [which surprisingly even though I know is capable of making mistakes, I don't really worry about bugs]

Will BankSimple eventually if not at launch do other bank-y things like consumer loans, offer savings bonds, etc?

What about fraud protection? What if some one steals my card and buys a bunch of stuff with it? [Ok, I've asked my bank about this one at least]

They answer a few of these questions on their FAQ: https://banksimple.com/faq/

* They are not a bank. They are essentially a web frontend for wholesale banks. Thus they are regulated differently.

* You do have the benefit of FDIC insurance, but it's unclear what ability you have to access your funds directly from the wholesale bank, or whether you are limited to BankSimple.

That's correct. We're also using Visa for processing.

You can read more about our partners here: http://banksimple.com/blog/BankSimple/partners-funding/

How is BankSimple different from mint.com searching through my Bank of America account statements? Alerts? Goals? I can do all that in mint.

We're a substitute for your bank, i.e. you'd use a BankSimple debit card, use our website or mobile app for payments and deposits, speak with our customer service representatives and so on.

My question is what does that buy me? Switching from an established bank to a mint.com like interface + an unknown bank that holds my deposits. There's no killer app to sign up for your service. Killer apps that I could think off are, (Holding deposits in multiple currencies, Savings account like interest on my checking. Right now the funds I park in checking for immediate expenses don't accrue interests till I move it to savings, Free payment gateway integration, so I could transact with anyone having a credit card like paypal, Free money transfers to any third-party bank in any currency in any country(you could kill western union with this)). Saying that I could grep through my statement more efficiently and visualize the data doesn't cut it as a market disruption.

I think the killer app is that this is a bank that actually cares about their customer's experience (because they know it's one of their big competitive advantages), and is coming at it from the standpoint of techies who understand what should be possible. In itself, that's not a checkbox on a feature list that you can line up against the other banks, but it should show itself in myriad ways as they rederive what a bank is from first principles. They're obviously not done. If they keep pushing, that's exciting.

Also, since they're likely to be run much more cost efficiently than most banks, they should be able to do a lot of things without the normal gotcha fees.

I get all that from First Republic now. Great web tools, no-fee access to any ATM, and fantastic phone support.

I'm not just looking for a bank that does the standard stuff somewhat better, or is nicer to me. There is a lot more that could be done. Wealth management related startups like Mint have scratched that surface, but with an end to end implementation of a bank and all the tools and data that brings, a lot more becomes possible.

Also, First Republic's site looks like something made with a table layout in the 90s and left alone since, so I doubt that they're doing anything innovative on the consumer facing side that requires any amount of tech expertise.

Admittedly my finances are pretty simple, but my bank is something I really don't want to think about much or spend a lot of time dealing with. Maybe if someday I have a lot of wealth to manage I'll feel differently. The most important thing is that I can always get somebody on the phone right away that is informed and helpful.

First Republic's web tools aren't going to win any design awards but they do the job and have never given me any trouble.

If they do get categorization significantly better, I'd jump - I have to change something like 1/4 of my transactions in Mint, and the partial data I see is rarely descriptive enough to help much (not sure why it's partial - legislation? decision? I hate it either way). I can't make categorization rules specific or broad enough, and always always need to double-check everything. I like it, but it's a PITA.

That's what I am wondering... I was under the impression that it was a new type of bank, not budget software. I'm a little concerned for my very similar named product BudgetSimple (http://www.BudgetSimple.com) which has been out for years both because of the similar name, and now seemingly similar space...

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