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Simple is closing some customer bank accounts, and users are mad as hell

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 Simple, the online banking service that promised to be a better alternative to big banks like Chase or Citibank, is falling short of some users’ expectations. This time, it comes as a result of the sudden and surprising notice customers received alerting them that their accounts would be closed next month. Read More

Sling Studio makes multi-camera video production so damn easy

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Tito Hamze gives an in-depth review of the Sling Studio, a multi-camera production studio that turns your existing cameras wireless and makes your phones into cameras with the ability to control everything from an iPad as a switcher. It’s the most portable multi-cam setup I’ve ever used — and it’s awesome! Read More

Revealed: Mint.com Could Soon Fire Back At Simple With A Debit Card Of Its Own

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Earlier today, online banking startup Simple unveiled new reporting features that will allow users to see how much — and where — they’re spending money in their bank accounts. Those features seemed aimed squarely at Intuit-owned Mint.com, which has been one of the leading online budgeting and data visualization tools.

One advantage that Simple has over Mint and other online budgeting tools is that is linked directly to a user’s bank account, meaning all of the data and reporting that it generates is directly actionable. And it can do that because users have their own Simple-branded debit cards and checking accounts. Well, it might not have that advantage for very long, as it appears that Mint will soon introduce its own debit card, called the Mint Control Card.

An advertisement for the card was spotted hidden in Mint’s code and sent in by a tipster earlier today. TechCrunch developer Vineet Thanedar has confirmed that yes, the code is there — but of course, we’re not sure how long it’s been there or how soon before Mint.com’s debit card will officially be launched and advertised to the public. [Full text of the ad is below.]

While it’s unclear exactly how the debit card will connect with Mint’s service, the pitch seems strikingly similar to what Simple is trying to accomplish with its service. In particular, Mint’s promise to let users “know exactly where [they] stand” sounds a heck of a lot like Simple’s “Safe To Spend” feature, which takes into account a user’s income and regularly scheduled expenses to determine how much discretionary spending money they have. Also, the ability to “reach savings goals faster” is similar to Simple’s recently released “Goals” feature, which lets users designate a certain amount of money they’d like to save and have it automatically deducted from their “Safe To Spend” amount.

Both Simple and Mint.com are seeking to provide data visualization tools to allow users to see exactly where their money is going and provide advice on how they can make better spending decisions. But while Simple is slowly rolling out debit cards as part of its public beta, Mint already has a very large and engaged user base tracking their finances through its platform. That could be a huge advantage, if it can convert existing users to use the card. It also is advertising a 2 percent cash back bonus for purchases made using the card, which is another competitive advantage.

All that said, getting users to switch is a huge pain, even for existing banks. It will be interesting to see how both Simple and Mint fare as they seek to convert online users to their services.

Introducing Mint Control Card: control your finances.

Now there’s a debit card that helps you control your financial life and make smarter spending decisions.

Know exactly where you stand.

You’ll instantly know what’s left on your card and where you stand with your budget, in real-time, so you’ll always know what’s left to spend.

Stay on-track with your spending.

You can set spending limits in any category you choose, so you’ll never have a negative balance or pay an overdraft fee again.

Make better decisions and save more.

Reach your savings goals faster with controlled spending — plus 2 percent cash back on everyday purchases — so you can get to where you want to go.

Simple Fleshes Out Its Online Banking Service With Mobile Check Depositing

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From the outset, online banking startup Simple has been focused on supplanting the brick-and-mortar banks in its users’ lives, but they haven’t always been equipped to handle every little transaction that comes up. Case in point — what happens when someone cuts you a check (after all, the holidays are right around the corner)?

Well, that’s no longer the case. According to a post on the official Simple blog, users are now able to deposit money from those pesky pieces of paper just by taking a photo with the company’s iOS app.

If we’re being honest, the feature itself is nothing too special — mobile applications from more established players like Chase and Bank of America have been able to do this for a little while now — but it represents a big step forward in service for users still on the fence about making the switch completely. The process is very, well, simple: users enter the amount on the check, snap a photo of the front and the (endorsed) back. That money doesn’t all appear in your account at once though — up to $200 of those funds will be deposited in a user’s account within one business day, depending on how long that person has been a Simple user and how large the check in question is. Not to worry though, as the remainder will trickle into the associated Simple account within another day.

Interestingly enough, users looking in the iOS App Store for an update will come away empty-handed — instead, it appears that the Simple team flipped a switch on their end to enable the nascent feature for all users. Prior to that, Simple spent a few weeks quietly bringing the feature to life for certain subsets of Simple customers:

“Roughly three weeks ago, we shared a preview of the feature with an initial group of nearly 300 customers,” Simple CEO Josh Reich told TechCrunch. “We expanded that group by 750 the next day and pushed to an audience of more than 4,000 last week.”

Speaking as a Simple customer myself, I still don’t know that I’m fully ready to ditch my local bank branch. That’s not a jab at the company itself (though a recent spell that left certain users unable to view some recent transactions was a bit worrying) but there’s something to be said for sticking with a process that just works in spite of its annoyances. That said, the addition of photo check deposits closes a crucial gap in the Simple service — I’m just waiting for an Android app and integration with a service like Mint before diving in completely.

Online Banking Service Simple Now Has An Android App, Designed From The Ground Up

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Since launch, online banking provider Simple has sought to provide an alternative to traditional banking services. It’s done that with built-in data visualization and a beautiful and intuitive mobile app for iPhone. Now it’s expanding to Android, with the launch of a native app designed for Google’s mobile operating system. That will greatly expand the number of potential users for the startup’s alternative banking service.

The Simple Android app comes about eight months after the iPhone version and will have many of the same features that are available on the iPhone, including the ability to make mobile check deposits and to find the nearest no-fee ATM.

announcing-simple-for-android-1But it’s not just a carbon copy of the startup’s iOS app: On the blog post announcing the app, Simple Director of Mobile Engineering Dustin Barker says the company worked with mobile product development firm Two Toasters to build the Android experience from the ground up.

Over the past few months, Simple has been adding a number of features to its iOS app and web experience, making both a lot more useful. That includes the launch of mobile check deposits. It also includes the introduction of Goals, which is Simple’s way of helping users save up without really having to think about it.

Why Simple Is Better Than Your Bank, Both Online And On Mobile Devices

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Most banks are notoriously bad at online, and especially mobile, experiences. Some don’t have mobile apps at all, and those that do exist typically aren’t that good. That’s why the folks at Portland, Ore.-based startup Simple think they can make banking better, with new ways of keeping track of your money.

Simple isn’t actually a bank — it partners with FDIC-insured institutions to actually keep your money safe and secure — but it provides online and mobile tools to help users manage their funds. Among other things, Simple stores a ton of data about user transactions that most banks simply throw out. That provides robust search capabilities that most banks can’t match. It also has a goals feature that allows users to easily set aside money without having to think about it.

Last week, I spoke with Simple CEO and co-founder Josh Reich for TechCrunch TV, and he walked through all the cool tools that Simple offers online and on its iOS and Android apps. I’m already a user, and have been one for several months… But if you haven’t seen Simple yet, check out the video above for a demo of the service.

Online Banking Startup Simple Finally Makes It Easier To Move Money Into Your Account

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Simple has made some serious strides since it opened up to the public last year, but there’s one thing the service has just never been that great at: transferring money from one bank account to another. According to a post on the official Simple blog, those days are finally over — users can link their Simple accounts to existing bank accounts to move their money around.

Frankly, it’s about time.

Let’s back up a minute here first: why is this such a big deal? To answer that, we have to look at how the Simple onboarding process works. When you first set up a Simple account, you’re given the chance to make one initial funds transfer from your old bank account — that’s it. Before the external accounts feature was added, users who wanted to subsequently transfer funds from their existing bank account to a Simple account had to come up with some clever workarounds to get the job done.

simple-checkMy personal favorite: if you linked a Square account to a Simple bank account, you could swipe a transaction to the tune of however much money you wanted to move using your own debit card (and in case you were wondering, yes, I’ve done this a few times).

Last November, Simple made that process just a little easier by adding a mobile check deposit feature to its apps — then you could just write yourself a check and deposit it directly into your Simple account. Better, yes, but it still wasn’t as seamless as it should have been.

Now, at long last, the process is finally as simple as the company’s name implies. You’re prompted to punch in your account and routing number (you can do this for up to three accounts), after which you’ll have to keeps your eyes peeled for two small transactions to confirm that everything was copacetic. Once all that’s squared away, it’s all the fee-free fund transfers you can handle. Implementing the feature isn’t just a savvy move, it’s a downright necessary one. Simple has spent the few years trying to convince people that it’s a friendlier, more direct way for them to manage their money, and the company has so far managed to win over more than 35,000 users.

That’s not too shabby considering how carefully the team has been handling the invitation process, but if Simple really wants to win over the masses, it has to more effectively blur the line between what it can do and what more traditional banks can do. After all, Simple is still a startup — a smart, well-funded one with the support of a major bank, but a startup nonetheless. With this external accounts feature, Simple isn’t just giving a users a way an easier way to get started, it’s giving them an easier way to bail out if the service just isn’t right for them. Consider it a safety net for those wary of diving into the strange new world of app-centric banking.

For what it’s worth, this whole thing just about has me ready to take the plunge. Since launch I’ve been shunting a few bucks out of each paycheck into my Simple account for random geeky purchases, but now I’m seriously thinking of ditching my old bank entirely. Of course, this is exactly what Simple wants since it makes money in the form of interest margin — if more people get comfortable transferring all their money into their Simple accounts because the process is now so much easier, Simple may soon be laughing all the way to the bank.

Braintree Expands Venmo Touch, Partners With Online Banking Startup Simple For One-Touch Mobile Payments

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Braintree, the Chicago-based payments gateway that’s now processing over $10 billion in payments annually, including those for startups like  Uber, Fab, Hailo, Airbnb, Rovio and others, is today expanding on last summer’s acquisition of payments service Venmo through a new partnership with online banking platform Simple. The banking provider will integrate with Venmo Touch, a service that allows users to store their credit card data in Braintree’s network in order to facilitate one-touch payments with Braintree partners.

Starting today, Braintree is making Venmo Touch available for the first time to banks and card issuers. The service was previously available to app makers, having initially launched with companies like HotelTonight, TaskRabbit and Wrapp.

The integration in Simple, though being announced this morning, is still a few weeks out from going live with the banking startup. But soon, customers will be about to opt-in to the service, which will then enable one-touch purchases across Braintree’s network of apps.

This one-touch service exited from a closed beta this April, offering users a better checkout flow in supported applications. Instead of having to re-enter in their credit card info every time they signed up for a new mobile app that’s Braintree-powered, Venmo Touch will allow consumers to save their credit card info on the network and then retrieve it.

For end users, the process of doing so isn’t all that different from what something like Google Wallet has introduced – you add your credit card, and then can use it again and again on services where Wallet is accepted. Google, too, is making a play for users’ payment activity on mobile – yesterday, for example, it incentivized users to “shop and save” with popular Android apps and mobile websites where “Buy With Google” is enabled.

Though Google’s and Braintree’s services are different – one is a wallet, the other a payments gateway – the end goal is essentially the same: get customers to store their credit card info with the platform. Once saved, customers will generally avoid the hassle of choosing another means of payment – like, say, PayPal, for example. They’ll continue to use whatever offers the least amount of friction and minimal typing, especially when it comes the painstaking entry process on mobile’s tiny screens and keyboards. And as the users turn to the easier way to transact, the platform holding their data continues to grow.

Though Braintree is only announcing a partnership with Simple today, what Braintree really needs now is to get bank card issuers on board, too. The major credit card comapnies Visa, MasterCard, and Amex, however, have been building out their own mobile technologies and digital wallet applications, which also allow customers to store payment info in virtual online lockers of sorts, then quickly roll through checkout with supported merchants. Though not necessarily “mobile wallets,” these digital services could be housed in a mobile app interface.

For consumers, the payments landscape is still a confusing one – and in particular, it’s confusing on mobile. At the end of the day, users will adopt whichever technology is most widely available to them on the services they use most.

Braintree, whose $10 billion in annual payments is riding up close on the heels of PayPal mobile’s $14 billion in 2012, now has a horse in that race.


Simple’s MoneyDrop Will Soon Let Users Transfer Funds Using Bluetooth

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Things seem to have been moving rather smoothly for the folks at online banking startup Simple. They’ve spent the last year fleshing out their mobile apps with some much-needed features and added some 25,000 customers to their ranks since July. Now the team is looking to add yet another feature to the fold in the coming months: Simple-to-Simple fund transfers.

Yeah, fine, I’ll admit the concept doesn’t immediately sound like a game-changer. Just as the name implies, Simple customers will be able to quickly exchange sums of money from directly within the app, a stark contrast from some of the clunkier peer-to-peer transfer methods used by competitors like Chase or Wells Fargo. Considering the sort of oomph that recent updates have brought to Simple’s mobile apps, something like this was only a matter of time.

Here’s the catch, though — Simple’s iOS development team (which at this point only consists of two guys, Tom Wanielista and Collin Ruffenach) has figured out a clever way to facilitate those funds transfers when you’re physically near your recipient. It’s called MoneyDrop, and with it Simple hopes to do away with the need for paper money entirely.

Those are bold words to be sure, but I caught a brief glimpse of the new feature in action and it seems to get the job done smoothly even in its unfinished state. The feature allows Simple customers to detect other ones nearby using Bluetooth Low Energy, and all local compatible users will be displayed in what Simple calls the Arena.

simple-moneydrop

If you’re the one who needs to send money, you find your recipient’s avatar and name, tap on it, punch in the amount to want to send, and confirm your choice. Meanwhile, the recipient tackles a confirmation screen of their own, and voila — that money has just changed hands without the need to scrounge through pockets or find an ATM.

Now if you’re anything like me, your first reaction was something akin to shock. Using Bluetooth to facilitate money transfers? There’s no way that could ever go south, right? As it turns out, Simple was careful to minimize its reliance on Bluetooth from the get-go: the app assigns users a randomized ID each time they fire up MoneyDrop, and those IDs are the only things shared over that Bluetooth connection. Once that initial handshake is done, both the sender’s and the recipient’s temporary IDs are checked in the backend to ensure they match the permanent identifiers tied to each user’s Simple account. Not too shabby for a project that was conceived and implemented within the span of about five months.

Alas, some users will be able to start playing with MoneyDrop sooner than others. It’s slated to hit iOS first, though the feature’s reliance on Bluetooth LE means you’ll have to have an iPhone 4S or newer to actually use it. I’m told that an Android version of the feature is currently in the works, too, and it should land on supported devices not too long after iOS users get the nod. Only time will tell if MoneyDrop will be enough to tempt Simple users from handling cash entirely, but if nothing else it should help make the argument to switch banks just a little more compelling.

How T-Mobile’s New Mobile Banking Service Compares With Simple And Amex Serve

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T-Mobile today announced its intentions to get into the business of providing banking services to its wireless customers, and any others who want an alternative to traditional banking accounts. The new platform will compete with, and also potentially boost, other, less-known mobile banking services, like those provided by a banking startup called Simple, for example, or Amex’s Serve.

It’s not a new idea for a mobile carrier to get into the bank-by-phone business like T-Mobile is now doing  – Kenya’s M-PESA, launched in 2007, is probably one of the best known examples of how successful such a tie-up can become. Today, there are nearly 20 million people around the world using M-PESA, which has since expanded from a basic mobile money transfer scheme, to include other loans and savings products, bill pay, salary disbursements, and more.

M-PESA, however, owes its leading position in the worldwide mobile banking business to a variety of factors, including not only its country of origin – a place where city workers regularly sent money back home to family in rural villages – but also because of fewer regulations, the backing of the country’s largest operator, Safaricom, and, as is often the case with new technologies, good timing. (Post-election violence in 2008 had Kenyans turning to M-PESA, which was regarded as safer than banks, The Economist explains).

In other words, what works in some parts of the world may not necessarily thrive in the U.S., and here, a carrier-backed mobile banking service is still something of a novelty. (Sprint prepaid subsidiary Boost Mobile launched something similar to T-Mobile’s last year, but has a smaller footprint).

Why Mobile Banking Now?

Mobile Money by T-MobileBesides being a good fit for its image as the un-carrier, T-Mobile is clever to now become an “un-bank,” too. In the wake of consumer distrust of big banks following the crash and government bail-out, job losses, and an overall tough economic climate, moving funds out of traditional banks into prepaid Visa accounts like T-Mobile offers, is the modern-day equivalent of cash in the sock drawer. It’s for the large swath of Americans who admit that traditional banking holds little value for them, because their lives are lived paycheck to paycheck, with things like savings or money market accounts, IRAs, and other investment plans and services as additional, unnecessary options that can only be aspired to.

T-Mobile’s timing comes also at a time when there’s pent-up consumer demand for more seamless ways to transact, without having to constantly carry around a billfold stuffed with cash and cards. Other startup companies, like Square for example, have benefitted from banks’ and others’ failure to move quickly here. Even longtime payment tech companies, like PayPal, know they fell asleep at the wheel, so to speak. As PayPal President David Marcus said this week, his company “sucked so badly” at certain things in the payments space, it left room for startups like Square, Stripe and Dwolla to emerge.

Screen Shot 2014-01-22 at 1.15.08 PM

Now T-Mobile is joining this fray as well, and its visibility could help boost the presence of other alternative mobile banking services already in existence. While there are several prepaid payment card options on the market, what makes T-Mobile’s service appealing is not just the reduced fees (versus traditional banks), but also the combination of a payment card and mobile application, where the app is not an afterthought, but rather a core part of the experience.

This puts T-Mobile’s service in competition with similar efforts, like that from Amex’s Serve or Simple (formerly BankSimple), as a couple of the more high-profile efforts in this space which we’ll analyze.

Here’s how they compare. (Note that because T-Mobile’s Mobile Money app has only just launched, it’s too soon to have a review of the mobile software itself.)

Simple

Though TechCrunch readers may be familiar with Simple, by nature of being early adopters themselves, this online and mobile “un-bank” is still a small drop in the bucket when compared with the traditional banks it’s trying to disrupt. Founded in 2009, the startup offers a modern front-end to bank accounts held in the FDIC-backed Bancorp Bank (which also issues T-Mobile’s card), but to date, Simple only has some 55,000+ customers.

Screen Shot 2014-01-22 at 12.19.47 PM

To some extent, this is because Simple remains invite-only, but scoring an invite is not that difficult – if you were serious about switching your accounts over and made the plea, you’d probably luck out. If not, you could always ask another Simple customer, who each get 10 invites to share.

Simple doesn’t charge the same kind of fees a traditional bank does, including the dreaded overdraft fee, but instead makes money off interest margin, which it shares with Bancorp, and merchant service fees.

What makes Simple stand apart is its easy-to-use interface, better customer service, and an appeal to a higher-end customer base less dependent on cash, and more interested in well-designed money management tools.

Serve

Meanwhile, Amex Serve is American Express’ “un-banking” alternative which also offers a prepaid account, which can be reloaded with cash from CVS and 7-Eleven stores across the U.S. Of course, Simple and Serve accounts can also be linked to your “real” bank account, if you’re too nervous to give it up for good.

Screen Shot 2014-01-22 at 12.17.02 PM

Serve is actually more like T-Mobile’s option than Simple, which fails to address the needs of those who still deal in cash – think service industry professionals, those doing odd jobs or under-the-table work, anyone who takes in tips, etc. (Simple customers in need of depositing cash have to first convert it to a money order, then deposit that with the Simple mobile app. That’s a major hassle.)

The use cases for a Serve account are similar to that of T-Mobile Money – meaning, it’s for those needing a prepaid account with mobile access, bill pay, and an easy way to transfer money to other family members. Serve also offers a few value-add features, like a roadside assistance hotline, purchase protection, and other benefits reserved for Amex cardholders.

Reloads

Meanwhile, both Serve and T-Mobile have partnerships with reload networks for handing cash deposits. Serve works with MoneyPak and Vanilla Reload, while T-Mobile works with Reloadit, MoneyGram and Visa ReadyLink. For some users, these selections will matter in the sense that they may want to choose something that’s available at the local retailers they frequent, but for those just switching to a prepaid account for the convenience of easier, mobile banking, they are less of a concern.

Transfers

All three, T-Mobile, Simple and Serve, offer standard banking services: you can pay at point-of-sale or online, pay bills, use ATMs, get cash back, and add and transfer money. All also have way to transfer funds from person to person, too. Simple’s money transfer service is actually real-time, when recipients are also Simple users, but this is rarely the case.

Serve lets you transfer money into sub-accounts (great for older kids, or not-so-thrifty spouses), or to non-Serve members. But then they have to register for Serve to accept the funds. Meanwhile, T-Mobile’s service lets you send money to other T-Mobile card holders – but you’ll need to know their phone number and last four digits of their card number, so it’s clearly designed with families in mind.

ATM Access

ATM access is something T-Mobile is touting as a huge benefit, claiming 42,000 in-network ATMs in the U.S. That means no ATM fees at a lot of places. However, Simple actually has more locations, with 55,000 Allpoint ATMs, the country’s largest surcharge-free network. Meanwhile, Serve offers only 22,000 MoneyPass ATMs in its network.

Other Fees

goals-list-composed3509935221The fee structures between the three services are fairly competitive. For those with concerns in a specific area, it’s worth noting who charges what for which options. But at the end of the day, the decision to move to one of these services or other un-banks options is a personal one, and one that may be less about the pennies saved and more so about the convenience each provides.

For those still heavily involved with cash, Simple is a poor choice for now. For T-Mobile customers, it makes more sense to choose the carrier’s option over Serve, given the benefits. (Same goes for Boost Mobile customers, perhaps.)

But those ready for the next step up from struggling between paychecks may find Simple more useful – it lets you analyze your spending, set savings goals and manage budgets. It’s mainly going after the higher-end customer who wants to “replace their bank,” with more human and caring customer service.

Fee comparison chart

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Who To Choose?

T-Mobile will get the headlines today for its “revolutionary” new service, but what it’s offering is neither a first in terms of carriers getting into mobile money management, nor is it remarkably different from competitors. But in an era when everything is shifting to mobile at such a rapid pace that entire markets – like PCs, Windows, BlackBerry, etc. – are in decline, it makes sense for T-Mobile to try its hand with Mobile Money.

Banking Startup Simple Acquired For $117M, Will Continue To Operate Separately

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Banking startup Simple has been acquired, the company announced today. The acquiring company, BBVA, is a 150-year old financial services corporation that operates in a number of markets, and a leading player in the Spanish market, as well as one of the top 15 banks in the U.S. and a strategic investor in banks in Turkey and China.

Simple will continue to operate as it has done to date, and promises that nothing will change for customers who are already on the platform. The Portland-based company was founded on the idea that banks don’t provide adequate online and mobile tools to properly service their customers. While not itself a bank, Simple operates as an intermediary between users and FDIC-insured institutions to provide users with access to data around their financial history, as well as tracking of expenditures and savings goals, with automated purchase data collected when its customers use their Simple Visa debit card.

Originally founded in 2009, Simple co-founders Shamir Karkal and Josh Reich wanted to put people in control of their own finances. With established banks, data about customers’ own financial status was either kept squirreled away out of sight, or discarded altogether. This driving vision has helped the company accrue over 100,000 customers, with 330 percent growth recorded in 2013, and total transaction value of over $1.7 billion.

The acquisition is designed to help Simple continue to scale while offering the same service, according to a blog post by Reich:

To achieve this, we will function as a separate business within the BBVA structure, operating in parallel with BBVA’s existing US banking operations. Furthermore, I’m remaining in my role as CEO and will be joined by the same team that built Simple over the past four years. The biggest change is that now we will have the support of a global banking group with $820 billion in assets that shares our passion for innovative technology and customer experience.

Customer accounts will remain at Bancorp for now, which is Simple’s current FDIC-insured partner, but the implication is that eventually customer accounts will be migrated over to BBVA so that Simple can have total control over the entire banking experience, another perk of the acquisition.

Total funding for Simple is around $15.3 million, including investment from SV Angel, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures, 500 Startups, Shasta Ventures, IA Ventures and more. It may not be WhatsApp numbers, but that still adds up to a tidy little return on investment for Simple’s financing partners.

The Secret Bubble

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There are not a lot of posts in my Secret feed marked ‘nearby’. In fact, I can tell you the exact number: 0. This is because I live in a medium-sized city in the San Joaquin valley, not in San Francisco, New York, Austin or San Diego — the locations I see most heavily represented in the messages delivered to my ‘circle’.

Some portion of this we can chalk up to the ‘bubble’ that exists with any new hot social app. The filmy barrier that buoys and nurtures fledgling services until it either bursts and releases them, or asphyxiates them into strangled sworls of Color.

There are a couple of kinds of ‘bubbles’ that we talk about in tech. The most prominent is the ‘money bubble’, which posits that companies and investors are riding a wave of faux optimism when it comes to the worth of technology. This is the other kind.

There are a few major trends in consumer Internet worth tracking, and several of them are woven together. Among these are messaging, ephemerality and anonymity. All of them are products of a generation raised on the Internet. I do not believe this is a coincidence.

Truth be told, I think that Secret likely has a strong chance of puncturing the virtual real-estate of the early adopter bubble. It’s got a simple, universal premise and a very human draw. It taps into the psychological topology of the modern Internet resident in a clever, powerful way. After a generation of Internet users who have treated permanence and indexing as the cover charge for entering, there is a new group of people who have a real awareness that they might not want everything that they put on the web to be there forever.

We are entering a new phase of the development of the net, in which we can actually make some real choices about what we want to be indelible and what we want to dissipate into the digital ether after it’s served its purpose. Part of this is the simple age of the medium. The early days of the web were marked by enthusiasm and sharing — we all helped this grow.

Now, the machinery is in place and people like Edward Snowden have forced us to acknowledge publicly what we all felt in some secret crease of our cerebellum: privacy is for the luddite.

Secret taps into that, to a degree, especially along the ‘anonymous’ axis. Even though it’s very much ‘security psychology lite’, it still plucks threads attached to the same sensitive nerve clusters that tell us that everything we’ve ever said to a computer has been read by someone in a cubicle in Virginia somewhere.

It’s the fast-food to the square meal of TextSecure or Cryptocat or Telegram. These are apps built for Serious Things and Serious Discussions that we want to remain Private. Secret, by comparison, is frippery. But, as time and tide and McDonald’s have proven to us — the frilly, fatty edges of things are often those most consumed, while the healthy inward parts remain the domain of the health nuts.

Because it came along at the right juncture, and because it plays on our basest desires — I believe that Secret has a real possibility of popping its bubble in fairly good shape.

But even doing so is no guarantor of value or benevolence. Even if the founders have a sincere interest in making a platform where people can be honest, we all know how that turned out for the Internet. Our own Josh Constine asked some serious questions of Secret founder David Byttow in a SXSW panel about what the service is doing to mitigate cyber bullying and abuse and what it’s doing to make Secret a safe place — and I believe he was right to do so.

Once Secret emerges from its current pupate state, we’ll get a clearer picture of the value it can, or cannot, bring. Because of my location, I’m often treated to a fairly unique vista as the enthusiasm and froth of a new service surges out of San Francisco and crashes onto the shores of Real Life, CA. So far, there is no serious surf for Secret, but when and if it does break, it’s very likely that it will feel much different here — which is fine.

Whatever it is, I hope it brings something worthwhile. A platform that gives a voice to people with too much fear in their hearts to express it any other way; something that gives voice to the voiceless; a tool to unlock inhibitions of the heart and mind. Not just another way to be crappy to one another.

It’s the sign of something lasting when a structure is flexible enough to mold itself around different ways of living and different values. We’re talking about Secret, but we’re also talking about whatever the next thing is. That thing you’re shout-pitching to a VC at a SXSW party or running over in your head on your drive out to Sand Hill road with your palms sweaty on the wheel of your rented Toyota Avalon.

Conquer those battles, get some users, create interesting things. But always remember that your wave will someday hit the shore — make sure it brings something valuable with it.

Online Banking Service Simple Just Made Bank Transfers Faster

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Simple, the online banking service acquired by BBVA earlier this year, had an overall goal of addressing the various pain points found at traditional banks, like minimum balance requirements, fees, overdraft charges, and more. Today, the company is making another improvement as it’s introducing a way to speed up bank transfers between Simple and accounts you hold at other banks.

If you’ve had to transfer money between bank accounts, or made an online payment that came directly out of your checking account, then you’ve likely used ACH technology, even if you aren’t familiar with this term.

The problem with ACH transfers is that money moves slowly – it’s often three to five business days before the transfer is complete. It’s an outdated means of moving money in a day an age when digital technologies, like person-to-person payment apps or bitcoin, for example, let us move money instantly.

Simple took its first stab at the problem of slow transfers last year, when it introduced “Instant.” This service allowed for immediate transfers without holds, checks, fees or wait times, but it only worked between two Simple accounts.

Today, what Simple is announcing is a way to speed up transfers between Simple and other banks. Transferring money out of Simple to another bank used to take four days, and now it takes one; meanwhile, transferring money into Simple used to take five days, and now it takes three, the company says.

Many banks are capable of accelerated transfers like this, but they sell this as a premium service. A Simple blog post notes that Bank of America charges $10 for a next-business-day transfer, for instance, while both it and Wells Fargo charge $3 just to move your money to another bank. Simple says it won’t charge for transfers, even though it has now sped them up.

So how did Simple speed up the painfully slow ACH process? No, they’re not actually moving these as wire transfers, it’s actually ACH. What they’ve done instead is to improved their technology that connects to the ACH network.

The usual process has multiple steps: first, the sending bank passes an ACH Origination file with your account info and transfer request details to the Federal Reserve; next, the Federal Reserve passes this file to the receiving bank. And then the sending bank waits a few days to confirm the transfer request can be fulfilled before releasing the funds.

Until now, Simple tell us that it processed every transfer request with two sequential ACH transfers to meet a design requirement of its banking partner, The Bancorp Bank. This extra ACH step made transfers slower than it wanted, however.

So the company redesigned the process with its partner bank so that every ACH transfer requires only one ACH Origination file. By eliminating the need for a second ACH Origination file, transfer speeds increased.

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In addition, Simple has also updated its website so it’s easier to understand where the money is being moved to and from and when it will arrive.

These changes will roll out in the next few weeks, the company says.

Simple was a promising startup when it first launched, as it had this idea of giving banking an overhaul – not by becoming a bank itself, but by developing a better interface and series of processes around how a modern bank should work. (Its accounts are actually held at the The Bancorp Bank, Member FDIC.)

But Simple seems to be struggling to gain user adoption, as a recently leaked document found that the startup had just 33,387 active customers as of April. Total customer accounts were pegged at over 100,000, however. And those customers’ deposits were also growing more slowly than expected the document stated.

Certainly, the fact that Simple’s website still advertises the service as being in an “invite-only” status can’t be helping with that growth.

Simple said in the past that regulatory hurdles affected its growth, and responded to the leak by hinting that the numbers reported were out of date. (Though it didn’t correct them). It also said it had plans to expand its marketing efforts this year, including via paid channels.

But at the end of the day, Simple will have to find ways to convince customers to switch banks, or at the very least start moving more of their money into Simple.

A good first step is making the latter far less painful to do, and that’s what Simple has introduced today.

Months After Its “Upgrade,” Simple’s Online Bank Is Still Broken

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Simple is no longer “simple.” Nearly two months after an upgrade to its systems and infrastructure, online banking service Simple is still recovering from a series of glitches that have affected every aspect of money management from bill payments to being able to see a correct available balance to refund delays, credits appearing as debits, and much more.

The startup built an updated front-end focused on improved web and mobile banking . It has some clever features, like being able to move money into “goals” that deduct funds from a “safe-to-spend” balance. The company was later acquired by BBVA for $117 million but has continued to operate separately.

And like most startups, it has faced some challenges.

Consumers today are fairly forgiving of apps with bugs, as long as those issues are acknowledged and addressed in a reasonable amount of time. But when the startup dealing with bugs is your bank (or more correctly, the way you access your bank account – Simple’s accounts are actually held at Bancorp Bank), users may be less forgiving.

The Awful Upgrade

Things started off poorly for Simple when the scheduled maintenance window for the August “2.0 upgrade” went longer than expected. But that’s not so uncommon – and Simple communicated the problems during the event, which locked some users out of their accounts for as long as 24 hours. Given my experience banking with a small, community bank prior to Simple, I’ve seen maintenance windows of this length before, so while the issues were disconcerting, they weren’t completely out of the ordinary.

What has been difficult, though, has been every day since Simple came back online.

Initially, a host of bugs were left unaddressed, including — critically — bill pay.

The problem became so bad that Simple began crediting its angriest customers $50 to make up for the problems, which The Oregonian determined equalled roughly $600,000 in payouts.

While the vast majority of Simple’s issues – like card downtime – were resolved within the 24-hour maintenance period, some customers (like myself) continued to have problems.

Some of these problems were one-offs, while others were more widespread, and were related to things like customers’ individual spending or balances, Simple told me at the time.

I personally experienced issues with the “safe to spend” amount showing incorrectly, duplicate payments, slow refunds, numerous display issues, and an overall, fairly broken bill pay system. I’m not alone.

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Bill Payments Broken For Weeks

My bill payment issues were chalked up to a change to a new bill pay provider, said Simple. Because my bill payments never appeared to process — at least on the front-end — I deleted them and then re-added them in an attempt to get them to go through, as advised. I even had to delete the bill payees themselves and start from scratch. And yet, they still failed.

Making things even more confusing, during this time, the web and mobile interface showed different views of what was going on.

In the end, some of my bill pay recipients ended up receiving three checks from me, causing a good deal of confusion. I had to explain the problem, and inform them which of the three checks had not been voided.

In September — now weeks after the upgrade — bill pay still had problems. For example, a scheduled payment was showing as being extracted on “null” instead of an actual date, which Simple’s customer service explained was a “purely cosmetic” display error. Bill pay was functional, I just couldn’t tell because of the way the information was displayed on the screen.

Other Problems Continue

Earlier this month — October, let me remind you — Simple was still suffering from these sorts of “display issues.”

In another instance, a credit I received from a merchant appeared as a debit, which Simple corrected by offering a courtesy credit so my balance and “safe to spend” amounts would show correctly. And the original refund itself was so delayed that I had assumed the merchant forgot to process it.

I’m not using these personal examples as a way to draw attention to my own issues and get help – I’ve been using proper channels, as any customer would, to reach a resolution, and have no outstanding issues as of today. I’m merely illustrating the problems, which are affecting many, with these examples. (If you don’t believe me, check Twitter.)

And now, as of this morning, I received what appears to be a form email sent out to a number of Simple customers that says:

“Within the past two months, you may have noticed that a credit you received was missing from your Activity.”

The message says Simple engineers have figured out how to fix the problem, and “over the next few hours, you’ll see your account balance increase to reflect the credit…”

Wait, so for two months, Simple wasn’t even showing customers how much money they actually have in the bank?

Isn’t that, like, one of the most important aspects of online banking – an easy way to see your current balance?

And yet, this is only one of many ongoing bugs Simple is still dealing with, including (as per a list provided to Simple customers upon login): check hold display issues, payment issues (not appearing in scheduled activities), merchant refund delays, and bank statement delays.

Simple is a broken bank and failing to live up to the promises made by its name. While the interface for the new mobile apps, Simple 2.0, is nice enough, the underlying system is clearly damaged. Simple has had staff “working around the clock” since the problems began, but the trickle-down effect is that a lot of things that once made Simple great are now no more.

You can’t trust what the screen in front of you tells you, you’re unsure if basic banking processes are functioning, and Simple customer service – the great feature that offered real humans chatting with you via web and mobile messages and the phone – is now so overworked that messages are no longer responded to the same day, as before, and other customers are stuck on hold.

With its many troubles, Simple’s bigger vision will suffer. The company wanted to offer customers more detailed spending analysis, charts and graphs – something that sounded like Mint combined with a bank. (Even Mint took notice.) With Simple 2.0, the company improved Goals and offered more details for individual transactions, but many of the changes were cosmetic: a new look-and-feel, a “favorites” function, new navigation, etc.

There is a lot that could still be improved when it comes to banking, including not just an analysis of spending that has taken place, but real-time alerts that stop you from over-spending in real-time, or alerts remind you about budget goals, for example, asking you to contribute. Analysis is just step one, recommendations should follow.

But these sorts of things can’t be addressed until Simple can fix its core problems. And there seems to be no ETA on that.

An Apple Watch In Middle America

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Okay, it’s technically not “middle” America, geographically speaking, but it is a small chunk of suburbia on the outskirts of an even smaller urban center. A place where people don’t rush right out and buy the latest new gadget simply because it exists. Where people don’t even notice your upgraded Dick Tracy-style Apple Watch wristwear, unless you find yourself compelled to point it out them. And then, shrugging their shoulders, they say things like “Hmm, I don’t know if I really need that,” or “Why did you get one?” Or, at best, with a tinge of skepticism, “Do you actually like it?”

A place where you give them an honest answer to that last question as, “Well, I don’t know. Sort of?”

It does seem wrong to complain about an Apple Watch. A luxury item if there ever was one. After all, if you’re going to spend several hundred dollars or more on a fancy wrist computer that you didn’t even need a month ago, surely you’ve accepted the fact that you’re willing to play the role of guinea pig-slash-early adopter for Apple by doing so. You know you’re prepping for your future role of Apple Watch evangelist or possible Apple Watch naysayer.

But the thing is, the Apple Watch today is more of a promise than it is a platform you can fully recommend. There are some good ideas in there about the future of passive computing, but they exist amid an already cluttered ecosystem containing some 3,500 novelty apps that are more nuisance than practical at times.

What the Apple Watch does best, after all, are its most basic functions: those that take advantage of its small-screened form factor, meant to be used with a glance for brief moments at a time. Not one where you spend multiple minutes gazing at your wrist in lieu of gazing at a smartphone. These are the kind of features that have mainstream appeal, including out here in suburbia.

That brings me to my favorite features of Apple Watch: Messages, the ability to take phone calls in a pinch, and Maps. (When Maps decides to actually work.)

I’d add Apple Pay to this list, but my oh so innovative bank – the startup Simple, which tried to disrupt banking before selling to BBVA – didn’t bother to support Apple Pay until just hours ago. And so this magical world of tapping things to pay for things has been, so far, kind of lost on me. Instead, I’ve had to swipe my card like all those who don’t try to impress the others in line behind them by demonstrating the future of technology at every point-of-sale. (Admittedly, I’m now looking forward to being one of those annoying people.)

But that means that, so far, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve thought to myself, “wow, it was really useful to have an Apple Watch just now!” Because mostly, it’s not really useful. It’s fun. It’s neat, for sure. But, generally speaking, it has not been essential.

That said, I can still see the potential.

Built-In Apps Are Best

The first a-ha moment was when I had a dog leash in each hand, a door knob in my grip, and a 5-year old running around my legs. My iPhone, meanwhile, was somewhere back in the house. And then the phone rang. I knew the call was one of those brief ones – the old, “hey, I’m on my way” – but in days of yore (you know, like, earlier this year) – I would have had to just miss it. Or desperately scramble back inside, likely tangling myself up in dog leashes in some comedic way. Instead, I just banged on the Watch with my free knuckle and said “hello.” The Watch’s speakerphone-like calling feature let me have that quick conversation, and then get back to the task at hand: taking the dogs to pee.

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Another notable feature is being able to view and respond to text messages when my phone was not around – whether that’s because it was tucked away in my purse (at last! I can do this!), or secured in a locker as I roamed the gym floor – it was refreshing to break the iPhone habit. The phone is put away, but I’m not missing anything.

The Activity app is also one of the better features of the Apple Watch, as it allows you to more passively take stock of your daily moves and exercise. With other fitness trackers I’ve owned, I tend to forget to charge them (like with FitBit) or leave them stuffed in a drawer when their batteries die (as with Misfit Shine.) The Watch, however, is routinely charged at night right next to the iPhone. And since you likely wear it for other reasons besides exercise tracking, you don’t have to remind yourself to put it on.

The app’s activity charts are simple and easy to read, but what’s better is that Apple’s Health app on the iPhone pulls the data for a more detailed analysis. I haven’t yet decided if I love or loathe the Watch’s incessant reminders to stand, however. (Stand!, it proclaims. But Watch, please, I’m trying to write something here!)

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The final, and most promising feature is the ability to navigate via Apple Watch’s walking directions. As someone with a poor sense of direction, and whose driving is predominantly to and from Target, not traversing city blocks, this came in handy the most when traveling. It’s hard to argue that it will be a common use case out here in suburbia, however.

With a long press on the Maps app, I could speak my destination in order to get turn-by-turn directions. As someone who tends to twist my phone around to orient myself against the streets displayed on its screen (oh c’mon, I know you do this, too) – the ability to simply be told to walk this way or turn that way is sort of a godsend.

The cleverest thing about this feature is the haptic feedback the Watch provides. There are two different pulse patterns that inform you whether your next turn is a right or left. In other words, you can walk around like you know where you’re going by following little buzzes on your wrist. I wouldn’t say it’s immediately obvious which is which, but it’s something you should pick up after a few uses. And if needed, you can simply glance at your wrist for a quick update on how many feet away you are from your next turn, which continually updates as you move.

When Maps worked, it was downright fantastic. Unfortunately, the experience was glitchy three-fourths of the nearly half-dozen times I tried it. The app got stuck on the “Loading” screen so long on one occasion (in an area where I had perfectly good coverage, in fact) that I had to force close the app and start over.

Another time Maps was just super laggy when loading. And more than once it just slowed down, failing to update with the next turn or the remaining feet until the next turn, which could leave you heading in the wrong direction. Obviously, these sorts of glitches damage the trust factor you have to have with a mapping application, and have you at times pulling out your iPhone to fact-check by way of Google Maps.

Many Third-Party Apps Disappoint

Beyond that, most of the current third-party applications are non-essential at best, and nearly useless at worst. At present, I can’t think of a single third-party app that could convince a suburbanite that an Apple Watch is a must-have.

I mean, I guess it’s nice to be able to read the headlines in the bathroom without taking your phone in there with you? And I honestly don’t care that my friend just shared some stupid viral link on Facebook or liked my Instagram photo. I found don’t really need to know the moment I’ve been retweeted, either.

Perhaps it’s because I’m still getting used to the idea that there’s now a screen for these kinds of interactions available on my wrist, or maybe it’s because these kinds of interactions work better on smartphones.

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I did pull up my TripIt itinerary a couple of times, but you can already do that on your phone. The same goes for the various airlines’ Watch apps. Their Watch apps are certainly nice to have – especially in that panicky moment in the security line where my iPhone randomly rebooted only moments before I had to show my mobile boarding pass to TSA staff. Whew! But they are not critical. A phone would generally suffice.

However, I really liked the Uber app, which buzzed when my car was arriving, but again–this is an app that won’t be used regularly out here in the ‘burbs where we generally drive ourselves.

I think the most valuable third-party apps today are those that focus on taking advantage of the Watch’s sensor array (heart rate monitor, accelerometer) and small screen. That is, fitness and transit apps are best. For fitness-tracking, while it makes sense to be able to kick off tracking a running session, for example, it’s frustrating because the Apple Watch taps into your iPhone’s GPS instead of having access to its own. That means you still have to tote your iPhone on a run to track your route (though not your activity, which it estimates.). Presumably, if Apple chooses to add GPS to the Watch in later generations, this could be an improved experience.

And while transit apps like CityMapper are less applicable in Middle America, it’s worth at least acknowledging their importance to a large number of people today. And commuters to large cities will certainly find it useful.

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The Promise: Your Life, Returned

The best thing about the Apple Watch in Small Town USA is that it lets me get back to my life. I may be leading a double life as both a tech addict and a soccer mom, but the Watch lets me take a break without feeling like I’m missing out. I can give my friends my full attention as we chat about our lives, without needing to hold my iPhone or pull it out and check it from time to time. I can stow my phone in my purse, gym bag, or pool tote and still feel connected, just as promised.

Life here is slower, but the interruptions offered by technology have impacted suburbanites and urbanites just the same. PTA moms and barbecue-grilling dads may see initially see the Apple Watch as yet another tool forcing us to stay connected, but really, the opposite is true.

Like our city-dwelling counterparts, we also spend too much time tapping on small screens, while ignoring the vistas in front of us. We, too, carry around the guilt of having missed moments, while having forgotten the people in front of us. We stress over phones at dinner tables. Over eyes fixated on digital conversations, instead of spoken ones.

The Apple Watch’s promise is the ability to break that cycle. How ironic that is. We once paid Apple time and again for the privilege of using its many devices. And now – oh how clever, Apple! – we must pay again for the privilege of being able to stop.


Simple Issues Bank Startup Mondo Cease And Desist Over Alleged Use Of “Safe To Spend” Trademark

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Simple, the U.S. banking startup now owned by BBVA after it was acquired in early 2014, seems to have forgotten what it’s like to be a fledgling upstart already.

The company’s lawyers have sent yet-to-launch U.K. bank Mondo a ‘cease and desist’ over its alleged infringement of the trademark “safe to spend” after the phrase was spotted being used in a prototype of Mondo’s app in screenshots shared on Twitter and subsequently published in an article by TechCrunch.

In the letter (embedded below), Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, representing Simple Finance Technology Corp, instruct Mondo to cease using the phrase “SAFE-TO-SPEND”, for which Simple successfully trademarked in the European Union as of April 21st in connection with its online banking business.

The letter also alleges that Mondo is using the mark “SAFE TO SPEND” in connection with “virtually identical goods and services,” and references TechCrunch’s article (sorry Mondo!) regardless of the fact that the original source was screenshots that first appeared on Twitter.

MondoNow, of course, Simple has every right to defend its own trademarks — though who would have thought the fairly generic phrase “safe to spend” could be trademarked — and in fact to some degree it’s obliged to do so in order to retain those trademarks. However, in this instance the issuing of a ‘cease and desist’ seems overly aggressive and bizarrely premature.

Mondo isn’t publicly launched and has yet to even secure a U.K. banking license, which, as we reported, it needs in order to fulfill ambitious plans to become a “full stack” bank in its own right, not just a mobile app running on top of an existing bank’s license and infrastructure, as is the case with most banking startups.

A simple note from Simple to Mondo’s founders alerting them to the EU trademark and suggesting they do not use the phrase going forward would surely have sufficed, rather than instructing lawyers on its behalf. But, hey, this is the litigious world we now live in.

I’ve contacted Simple to ask for comment and will update this post should or when I hear back.

Online Bank Simple Ditches All Fees

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When the online banking service Simple got started, one of its promises to customers was that it would eliminate many of the excessive fees that traditional banks charge while also offering an improved and mobile-optimized banking experience. However, while Simple certainly did away with a number of the most common banking fees – like maintenance fees, overdraft fees, or minimum balance fees, for example – it still charged fees for other, lesser-used services. But the company announced this week that it’s ditching all fees.

Previously, Simple was still charging for things like over-the-counter cash withdrawals ($1 per transaction), international ATM cash withdrawals ($2), treasurer’s checks ($8 per check), inactivity ($5/mo) and card replacement fees ($2; or $16 if expedited). Although these are not the sort of fees that customers would have to pay regularly, they still contributed to the company’s bottom line.

Going forward, Simple says it will continue to generate revenue from interest and interchange fees – that is, it splits the interest margin with its partner banks and it splits the service fee merchants pay to the issuing bank. This is the same way it’s always made money, to be clear, but now it’s eating the cost of even more fees in an effort to improve the overall customer experience.

“This revenue model is a manifestation of our belief that you should have access to your money when you need it, without paying fees,” explains Simple co-founder and CEO Josh Reich. “Today’s elimination of all fees is one example of how we’re constantly working to remove any inconvenience our customers feel from using a branchless service,” he adds. “It’s also the right thing to do. You shouldn’t have to worry about how much it’s going to cost to access your money.”

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To some extent, Simple is able to do this because it’s no longer operating as a startup in need of funding to stay alive – the company was acquired last year by financial services corporation BBVA for $117 million. At the time, Simple said it had over 100,000 customers. A later report revealed the number of active customers was lower, a leaked document stated. (Simple responded that the document was using placeholder numbers and was no longer accurate.)

Today, Simple tells us that it has “hundreds of thousands” of customers, but declined to offer a specific figure. The company also says it’s been seeing higher growth than ever and has an in industry low CPA (for personal retail checking accounts) by a significant margin.

We’ve also heard that Simple’s current growth rate is roughly on par with a bank that would have 5,600 branch employees, or 850 branches, though it has a team of just under 300.

By ditching its remaining fees, Simple may appeal to those who are fed up with their current bank and looking for a more affordable alternative.

That being said, though Simple customers may be saving on fees, they do miss out on some of the options bigger banks provide – like high-yield checking and savings accounts, for example. (Simple pays 0.01% in interest on customers’ funds.) That means at some point, a portion of Simple’s customers may consider other online banking options – perhaps opting for bank that does profit from overdraft fees in exchange for better interest rates, for example.

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One word of caution: while Simple is eliminating all its fees, that doesn’t mean that you’ll never pay extra when you hit up the ATM. Like most banks, there are fees for using out-of-network ATMs and Simple won’t reimburse for those. Still, the company points out, its customers have access to more than 55,000 fee-free ATMs – twice the number of Chase and Bank of America combined.

Simple rolls out shared bank accounts that work for anyone, including roommates

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Online banking service Simple is today rolling out a new product: shared accounts. However, unlike joint checking accounts typically shared by spouses, Simple’s shared accounts work differently. They allow customers to maintain their own accounts, but quickly fund then switch over to shared accounts to collaborate with each other on financial planning by tracking shared expenses, setting goals, and keeping an eye on the shared account’s “safe-to-spend” balance, which includes the money not already committed to bill payments and savings.

Because customers continue to have their own individual bank account, Simple Shared can be used by anyone who needs to combine their money, including not only those in relationships, but also roommates, siblings, or even parents and their young adult children.

 

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With Simple Shared, Simple is looking to change the way people handle shared finances.

First of all, the sign-up process for a Shared account is very quick, compared with traditional banking. To get started, the two users just link their individual accounts together, and a shared account is created in seconds.

It has also rethought account access. Instead of logging in and out of the different accounts, customers can quickly switch between their individual and shared accounts, with just a few taps.

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Plus, like individual accounts, Simple Shared accounts offer access to the same feature set, which includes the ability to set savings goals, track your available balance, pay bills, and fund through direct deposits, if desired.

It also comes with its own Visa card and doesn’t charge any fees. Unfortunately, like individual accounts, the interest rate remains low – only 0.01% – but Simple tells us this will change in the future.

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What’s most interesting is where the product fits in today’s broader financial landscape, Simple Shared isn’t only a competitor to traditional joint accounts, but also to quick money transfer services like Venmo or Square Cash. That’s because you can move money in between your own account and the shared account instantly.

So while Venmo might come in handy for splitting the bill at a restaurant, Simple Shared accounts may be better for more things like paying bills with your roommates, given that it’s a real bank account either person can access in order to view, manage, and analyze their shared spending and savings.

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Simple, as you may recall, had originally made a name for itself by ditching fees and modernizing the interfaces customers use to interact with their bank accounts, including on mobile, before being acquired by BBVA, where it still operates independently as its own brand. However, post-acquisition, the service had been slow to deliver on its earlier promises of making banking easy – it flubbed its biggest upgrade, for example, and continued to suffer glitches months after the fact.

However, in the years since, Simple has recovered and stabilized, even if it was no longer steadily rolling out new features.

That said, the banking service has seen customer growth hit about 50% in the first half of the year, and says it has brought on more customers per month in the past few months than many banks do in a year. In addition, over the past year Simple says it grew by 120%, versus average growth for personal retail checking growth which is about 7% annually.

Simple Shared is launching today into beta, and will be adding users to a waitlist, as it expects demand.

The service will be available on both web and mobile.

Simple’s new kind of shared bank account targets unmarried partners, roommates & more

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Online banking service Simple today is launching a new type of banking product aimed at a younger generation of customers who want to be able to collaborate on finances with others, but aren’t in the market for traditional joint checking accounts, like those typically used by married spouses. The company’s new Shared bank accounts let customers control their own accounts from a single app, but also easily switch over to a shared account to do things like track combined expenses and transactions, set budgeting goals with others, track the shared account’s “safe to spend” balance, and more.

The idea, the company explains, is to offer a type of banking product for “every type of relationship from romantic to roommate.”

In other words, Shared accounts are for those people in your life who deserve a step up from Venmo, but aren’t necessarily a spouse, or even a partner. Of course, spouses – or anyone else – would be eligible to share this account with you, if you chose.

While Venmo is handy for splitting everyday expenses – like the check at lunch, or paying a friend back for a Lyft ride – Simple’s Shared accounts are meant for those who need to actually combine their finances in some way. Users can move money from their Shared account to their Simple personal account, and vice versa. They can also use the Shared account’s Goals feature to save money for known upcoming expenses, whether that’s regular expenses like the month’s bills or those you want to save up for, like vacations.

In the Simple mobile app, customers can switch between their own account to the Shared account with just a tap on an account switcher, without having to re-authenticate with their username and password.

When transactions occur, both Shared account holders receive the push notifications on their phone.

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According to Simple, Shared accounts have been one of the company’s most-requested features since it first launched its online banking service.

Originally a startup aimed at taking on big banks by offering a more modern front-end to web and mobile banking, Simple was later acquired by BBVA back in 2014. Afterward, it struggled with upgrades, and was slow to roll out new functionality. But that has been more recently changing, with the launch of this new bank account, as well as various app updates, which have been thankfully glitch-free.

The company also recently forced its older customers with Bancorp-backed accounts to migrate to BBVA-backed accounts – a hassle, but one that will allow Simple to launch new features, including this new Simple Shared account.

Simple doesn’t detail its customers numbers, but said in September of last year that customer growth hit 50% in the first half of 2016. Also, last year, Simple grew by 120%, versus average growth for personal retail checking growth which is about 7% annually, it noted then.

Shared accounts were first introduced this past fall, but were only available in a limited beta, where users had to join a waitlist in order to request access. During the beta, customers complained it was difficult to tell with a glance which account they were viewing, so Simple has since revamped Shared accounts to give more visual cues about this, including both with wording and an aesthetic redesign.

Today, the new Shared accounts are available to anyone with a BBVA-backed Simple account.

 

Simple is closing some customer bank accounts, and users are mad as hell

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Simple, the online banking service that promised to be a better alternative to big banks like Chase or Citibank, is falling short of some users’ expectations. This time, it comes as a result of the sudden and surprising notice customers received alerting them that their accounts would be closed next month.

On Thursday, Simple sent notice to a small number of customers with the subject line “We have to close your account on May 13.” The notice went on to explain that the closures were the result of a massive account migration the company has been working on for the last several months. Those users wouldn’t make the cut before Simple’s contract with its former partner bank ended, leaving them out in the cold.

Simple launched its banking service in 2012, offering a forward-thinking and tech-enabled alternative to traditional brick-and-mortar banking options. With a slick web UI and mobile apps for managing customers’ money, Simple set itself apart from the monolithic banking products of the day.

In reality, the service sometimes fell short of some users’ expectations, due to occasional outages and glitches that plagued users even after it was acquired by BBVA for $117 million three years ago.

Simple’s acquisition by BBVA and its migration to the Spanish banking group’s infrastructure is the main reason behind the account closure notices issued yesterday. Until recently, Simple relied on The Bancorp Bank as its underlying partner bank where accounts were held.

Internally, the plan was always to move accounts over to BBVA Compass, and Simple announced the transition about a year ago. Last September, Simple began sending the first of its transition letters to customers, and has been migrating accounts from The Bancorp to BBVA Compass ever since. Rather than try to move everyone all at once, it did so in waves so that it could handle customer service requests as they came up.

According to a Simple representative, the company sorted customers by account activity and complexity to ensure the migration flow worked through a wide range of scenarios. Simple also says it invited customers with the most complex accounts to move earlier so that it could work through any issues that surfaced.

Unfortunately the company wasn’t able to get to everyone before its deal with The Bancorp ended and it would be forced to close the remaining accounts.

We first became aware of the issue after Aaron Frank, a Simple customer and founder of YC-backed credit card startup Final, posted his notice to Twitter yesterday. But he’s not alone: Other Simple users have taken to Twitter to complain about the way the company is handling account closures.

Frank told me that he was aware of Simple’s account migration to BBVA long before hearing from the company yesterday, and even requested back in January an update on when he would be invited to migrate his account. In an emailed response from the company, he received the following note:

Hey Aaron,

We are sending customers emails about moving there [sic] account in batches, which is why you haven’t received anything just yet. But not to worry, you will be getting information on how to move your account very soon!

Let me know if you have any other questions!

Frank has since been contacted by Simple customer support, but not everyone is as lucky. For its part, Simple claims that the notices were sent to less than 1 percent of its users — 0.7 percent, to be exact — and the vast majority of customers were migrated to the new system with no problems.

Still, with something as sensitive as banking, inconveniencing even a small number of users can have an outsized effect on public perception. As with other previous setbacks, it takes a long time to build consumer trust when it comes to dealing with someone’s money — and sending someone a notice that you’re closing their bank account in 30 days probably doesn’t help.

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