BankSimple is a basic web and mobile banking service. Although it is not legally considered a bank, it works as one. The startup wants to revolutionise online banking by taking a ‘hassle-free’ approach to banking processes and fees.
It handles all the common operations available at a physical branch, but it doesn’t actually handle any cash. More complex operations such as mortgages are not available though.
It was founded in New York by former Wall Street employee Josh Reich and ex-Twitter engineer Alex Payne, who got their inspiration from their negative experiences with personal banking.
The company plans to monetise through interests margins and interchange which will be shared with partnering banks.
The team is still developing the user interface and plans to open to the general public in 2012.
Some features overlap with the expenses manager Mint such as the accounts aggregation and the possibility to set budgets or saving goals, but BankSimple plans to integrate Mint in its features. Mobile payment startups such as Mobank are also competitors as they allow users to execute payments on the go.
The mobile banking market is growing significantly, as technology evolves and smartphone adoption increases. In the UK, mobile banking usage increased from 9.7% in 2010 to 20.4% in 2011, while in the US rates went from 11.4% to 21.9%