I'd pay for Mint + Bank in a single package. It looks great. However, it's hard not to be a little disconcerted when the "meet the team" bit doesn't have a single person who has any sort of financial title like "accounts manager" or anything. It's just a group of devs. That doesn't scream "we know finances" it screams "we know how to make web apps, hope you trust us with money too... it can't be that hard, right?"
Mint got away with this by simply being a front-end, and never touching your money. BankSimple should try a little harder to prove that it's not just a company that can identify why banks suck (not all that hard, really), but a company that can actually be relied upon to safely handle your money.
* I know that BankSimple are putting all your money into an FDIC bank, but as the intermediary and the company you are doing business with, the buck stops with them (pun somewhat intended)
Hi. I'm Josh, the CEO. You can read more about our growing team on the /team/ page, but in summary, I have an MBA in Finance and Accounting, and worked with a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio. Shamir, our CFO (aka 'account manager'), spent the last few years doing banking and payments consulting for McKinsey.
In addition to our core team, we have multiple payments systems consultants, banking lawyers and former regulators working with and advising us. We are also actively growing our compliance and regulatory teams. The jobs aren't posted on the site, because that's not the best way to hire for those roles.
Not that any of that is really worth much. Innovation comes from the outside. A lot of the pain in banking stems from atrocious technology, so we're making better tech to drive a better experience.
Hi Josh,
This all sounds great. It's exactly the sort of things I think you should consider you putting next to those portraits or on the Team page. I know you guys have all the technical chops, and as a potential customer, I wanted you to show me you knew what you were doing eyes wide open. Just a throwaway line "Plus an army of payment systems, banking lawyers and regulators ensuring the safety and security of your money" would make a world of difference.
I think that this is completely true- the best innovation comes from new people looking at a problem in a different way. This is most marketable right now while people are so disenchanted with the financial world. There are a lot of people who may not trust this at first- but those are not your intended early adopters. I know that in my group of friends no one interacts with a bank ever. Our only physical use of finance is at ATMs
It's not just the online aspect either. The internal tools are absolutely awful. And even small credit unions spend hundreds of thousands a year on them.
If BankSimple is really going to be immediately contactable via "Phone, chat, FaceTime, Skype, email, whatever.", then they're bound to be innovating on the internal stuff too.
Can they realistically contract out the call center to any of the companies that service existing retail banks?
I think one of the lessons of the contemporary internet is that outsiders often have some really helpful, valuable ways to improve institutional products + services.
It is true that when the stakes are high it's a little nerve-wracking. But really there couldn't be a better moment in time for outsiders w/out finance cred to take a crack at this. so many people are like, "ok, we let the "experts" manage finance. this doesn't work out so well all of the time..."
SO many people are chomping at the bit for anything better. i read comments on twitter every day from folks who are totally frustrated with their banks not just from incompetence, but because the services don't fit their lifestyles/ ways of managing money. maybe banksimple's initial customers will just be nomadic alpha geeks, start-up folks, and high frequency money movers. that's OK. alpha geeks were amazon's first customers, too.
BankSimple is not a bank. Think of them as a user-friendly GUI over a group of banks. As to where money actually gets deposited, it probably depends on which bank offers the best deal at any given time.
Doesn't mean that GUI doesn't have control of your financial interactions, moving your financial accounts between underlying banks, or being involved in any of the interchanges (ACH/Debit/Credit Rails, etc)
Mint got away with this by simply being a front-end, and never touching your money. BankSimple should try a little harder to prove that it's not just a company that can identify why banks suck (not all that hard, really), but a company that can actually be relied upon to safely handle your money.
* I know that BankSimple are putting all your money into an FDIC bank, but as the intermediary and the company you are doing business with, the buck stops with them (pun somewhat intended)