BankSimple Rebrands, Simply, as Simple

Their timing simply could not be better. BankSimple, the banking 3.0 startup we covered in April, has changed its name to Simple and opened its virtual doors (at Simple.com, naturally) to the public. Not really a bank at all, Simple partners with banks and financial institutions to offer money management services online.

Simple is capitalizing on the growing frustration with big banks and the name change, “is a better representation of what we aspire to. It releases us from the constraints of an industry in desperate need of innovation,” writes Joshua Reich, Simple co-founder and CEO, in a blog post.

The public beta follows a September sneak peak on their blog which stated: "The product isn’t finished. It will never be finished. We’re constantly improving. But we’ve now reached the point where we’ve learned as much as possible from testing internally and in a few weeks we’ll be shipping cards to our first real customers."

Simple offers no fees for ATM withdrawals, no monthly management fees, no overdraft fees, no minimum balance, live customer support and dedicated account interfaces for mobile and web platforms. The goal is no less than to overhaul traditional front-end banking as banks are under increasing public scrutiny for their part in the global financial crisis.

Hidden and unnecessary bank fees are making headlines as consumers grow savvier about the too often arcane practices of our financial institutions. "Banks make the most money when you make mistakes," said Reich to Fast Company. "There are two main reasons people want to look at banking info on their mobile device. Number one: what's my balance, and number two, has my paycheck come in? In other words, 'can I afford this?” 

Simple customer funds are deposited with FDIC-insured The Bancorp Bank and CBW Bank. With a $13.1 million capital round, Simple this year relocated from Brooklyn to Portland, Oregon, and has been testing the service with employees. The first wave of invitation recipients is being asked to give feedback as Simple further refines the product.

The service started out as BankSimple, creating buzz on social media by leveraging Facebook (bio: “Reinventing personal banking”) and Twitter (bio: “Better than a bank”).

A key feature of Simple’s app is a "Safe To Spend" figure highlighted in a red box at the top. The details were fine-tuned by designers down to the Gotham typeface, “a proper numeric format that ensures that all the decimal points in the figures line up exactly…that makes the magnitudes of the numbers easy to visually assess when you're scrolling through a long list on a small screen," said Reich.

The app updates in real time. As Reich commented, "We want to close the haptic feedback loop with purchases. When you swipe your debit card, we want you to be able to see the effects immediately in our app—not an hour or a day later."  

The former logo of a stylized wallet has been traded for a geometric guilloche pattern designed in-house. The spirograph-like curves are used on banknotes, securities and passports for added protection against counterfeiting. The exact techniques vary from country to country but universally stand for security and authenticity.

With one of Twitter's first employees as a co-founder in Alex Payne, Simple is all about real-time accessibility and easily available customer service 24/7.

Simple wants to remove itself from any association with profit-hungry banks in the eyes of beleaguered Americans; a simple but fundamental shift in the way we bank leapfrogs forward.

A comment from Carson J. Gallo on Fast Company's website sums it up: “I've been 18 a little over a month, and my Bank Life has felt as long and complicated as The Da Vinci Code, this Bank is a God Send for me.”