Promising “all the banking services you need without ever movin’ yer truck!” Redneck Bank offers checking and money market accounts, just like any other non-brick-and-mortar financial institution known as a direct bank (ING Direct is one of the more mainstream examples). But where ING Direct brands itself with a regal lion and a soothing orange sphere, Redneck Bank greets you with that guffawing steed in need of some teeth whitener.

If those ugly choppers don’t compel you to surf elsewhere, you’ll be impressed with this humorous bit of branding, particularly during a time when most news about banking in the US is almost as depressing as the obituaries…or your stock portfolio. (Washington Mutual, once the sixth-largest US bank, with a portfolio of tongue-in-cheek ad campaigns during the first half of this decade, is now history’s largest American bank failure and resides in the digestive system of JPMorgan Chase.)

A funny site that allows you to make a horse bristle and blink open its eyes with every mouseover won’t convince you that the bank is a safe haven for your money, however, so Redneck Bank’s “about us” section, labeled here as “yep, we’re a real bank!” does some explainin’: “There's nothing more serious than money…. The growing concern of our customers is a natural concern to us. So, we thought, ‘Let’s inject a little fun into the seriousness of the banking business.’”

This and other sections of the site that describe various features of Redneck’s online banking are written in clear, friendly and notably non-redneck English. Even if the page on money transfers is titled “movin’ yer money around” and features a Post-it imploring you to “open yer account now!” the rest of the copy assures potential customers that even if the bank doesn’t take itself too seriously, it is professional when it comes to handling money. Throughout, the site stresses that Bank of the Wichitas is almost 100 years old and is a member of the FDIC, so if that horse mistakes your cash for a bale of oats, you'll be covered—at least for the first $250,000.

Redneck Bank (and sites like Tightwad Bank) is an amusing and arguably welcome take on personal finance, but will its site entice people to sign up? Conservative customers already wary of direct banks wouldn’t deposit a nickel, and some neigh-sayers might be offended by the whole redneck/talking horse theme.

On the other hand, many people, not just comedian Jeff Foxworthy, proudly embrace the redneck ethos, and a redneck-branded bank would appeal to far more customers than a brand called Direct Bank of the Wichitas. Perhaps there will be a bank appealing to folks in the northeastern US—call it New Yawker Bank—where an NYPD steed brags, “A bettah place to save dough? Fuggetabout it!”

But that’d be a horse of another color.