<story><title>Twitter&apos;s Alex Payne quits, heads onto something new.</title><url>http://al3x.net/2010/05/17/something-new.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>webwright</author><text>Of the value props he describes, the only one that remotely resonates with me is: &quot;A bank that puts your money to work automatically.&quot;&lt;p&gt;He writes that nobody LOVES their bank.  But does anybody really HATE their bank?  Maybe some vocal folks, but a bank to me is a utility-- a hole in the wall where I stick my money.  I&apos;ve never felt gouged by fees (when I was young and stupid, I&apos;ve been annoyed by overdraft fees, but they seem justified).  I&apos;ve never been overwhelmingly frustrated by the design decisions of my bank.  They decidedly don&apos;t treat me like crap.  Every time I&apos;ve needed to interact with my bank(s) it&apos;s been a pleasant experience.&lt;p&gt;Given the switching cost/inconvenience, I think this is going to be a hard sell for most people.</text></item><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>I&apos;ve wanted to do something very much like this in a future startup. Banking does suck.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it&apos;s debatable how much of banks&apos; suckiness is avoidable. Retail banking is caught in a vice-grip between fierce competition for low margins and government regulations. For example, from what I understand you pretty much have to run mainframes with certain antiquated, government-approved software to process stuff through ACH. KYC rules prevent extremely efficient account openings. Etc, etc.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll be curious to see how this goes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jorgeortiz85</author><text>Must be Stockholm syndrome.&lt;p&gt;Have you tried to pay a friend an amount of money that would be inconvenient to do in cash? The best way to do it through your bank is to have them chop down trees into paper checks, physically mail them to you (this takes a few days), have you scribble down a number on the paper, hand (or mail... wait a few more days) the check over to your friend, who feeds it into an ATM, which scans the number you scribbled down, then you wait a few more days and eventually a few bytes in your bank&apos;s servers change to reflect your intended payment.&lt;p&gt;The last time I tried to make that entire process electronic-only, Bank of America said I needed to know my friend&apos;s account number and routing number, and even then they wanted me to show up to a bank branch in person to complete the deposit.&lt;p&gt;Sure, you could use Paypal, but it&apos;s an additional layer of complexity and risk, and if you&apos;re not careful they&apos;ll skim 3% off the top of your transaction.&lt;p&gt;Let&apos;s see... what else? Debit and credit cards. I live within my means. I don&apos;t want credit. I pay off my balance in full every month. Other than a hypothetical emergency, I would have no use for a credit card... except consumer protections for credit cards are much stronger than for debit cards. I&apos;d be a fool to use my debit card instead of my credit card. And even though I&apos;ve paid my credit card balance off in full every month for years, the one time I slipped by 3 days, I got slapped with a $30 late fee on a $200 balance (180% APR!).&lt;p&gt;Speaking of debit/credit cards... I visit my family in Mexico 3-4 times a year. Every time I go, I have to make sure to call Bank of America twice, to let both their credit card and debit card departments know that I&apos;ll be traveling. I&apos;ll have to wait on hold an average ~30minutes each time I call. If I forget to do this, and I try to use my credit or debit card while in Mexico, my cards will get frozen due to &quot;suspicious activity&quot;, again necessitating a call to Bank of America. I do appreciate that they&apos;re looking after my financial safety, but I really do travel to Mexico quite frequently. There&apos;s nothing anomalous about my using my cards while I&apos;m there. Once I do call they&apos;re incredibly helpful, but it&apos;s annoying that I have to call at all.&lt;p&gt;And don&apos;t even get me started on the fees and shitty exchange rates for using your card outside of the US...&lt;p&gt;Banking in America really is broken. If they&apos;re as good as they say they will be, I look forward to giving BankSimple my business.</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter&apos;s Alex Payne quits, heads onto something new.</title><url>http://al3x.net/2010/05/17/something-new.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>webwright</author><text>Of the value props he describes, the only one that remotely resonates with me is: &quot;A bank that puts your money to work automatically.&quot;&lt;p&gt;He writes that nobody LOVES their bank.  But does anybody really HATE their bank?  Maybe some vocal folks, but a bank to me is a utility-- a hole in the wall where I stick my money.  I&apos;ve never felt gouged by fees (when I was young and stupid, I&apos;ve been annoyed by overdraft fees, but they seem justified).  I&apos;ve never been overwhelmingly frustrated by the design decisions of my bank.  They decidedly don&apos;t treat me like crap.  Every time I&apos;ve needed to interact with my bank(s) it&apos;s been a pleasant experience.&lt;p&gt;Given the switching cost/inconvenience, I think this is going to be a hard sell for most people.</text></item><item><author>mattmaroon</author><text>I&apos;ve wanted to do something very much like this in a future startup. Banking does suck.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, it&apos;s debatable how much of banks&apos; suckiness is avoidable. Retail banking is caught in a vice-grip between fierce competition for low margins and government regulations. For example, from what I understand you pretty much have to run mainframes with certain antiquated, government-approved software to process stuff through ACH. KYC rules prevent extremely efficient account openings. Etc, etc.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;ll be curious to see how this goes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>abstractbill</author><text>&lt;i&gt;He writes that nobody LOVES their bank. But does anybody really HATE their bank?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I did love the bank I used in the UK (Lloyds-TSB - they gave me an indefinite interest-free 2000 UKP overdraft when I was a student, and have never charged me any fees that I can remember).  Conversely, I hate every American bank I&apos;ve had to do business with (WaMu/Chase and BofA so far).</text></comment>