[cs702]

The very smart, very shrewd, hard-working folks at Simple tried building a new kind of bank... and found out that the business of banking is FAR more complicated than it seems. Ultimately, Simple decided it would be best to sell to a giant established bank, BBVA (USD 800 billion in assets):

https://www.simple.com/company/the-next-chapter

The OP is a short ambitious document written by two guys who think they can do better. They think they can build a new kind of "bank for tourists." So far, they have a landing page and a mobile app: https://www.wrinq.com/ ...They will need a lot of luck.

[tiatia]

The paper contains a lot of bullshit and I don't see any new idea in it.

Foreign transaction costs are not "prohibitive" expensive and there are CC in the US with no foreign transaction fees. You can use transferwise or WU in the worst case (just wired a buddy who is broke US$ 300 online). Social network and payments? Use Wechat!

There are three major problems that they won't be able to solve.

1. KYC regulations

2. Fraud. The financial industry makes it more difficult and more difficult to access your own money (e.g. require a receive text message to wire money. Good luck with that abroad)

3. "in multiple currencies and fast unrestricted exchange of funds within the internal banking network"

This is not a problem as long as your stay within ONE country. Use Wechat in China, use M-Pesa in Kenya etc. It becomes a problem when you do it internationally because many countries are heavily regulated and afraid that capital leaves the country. Have you made, as an average person, international transactions with China? India? Sri Lanka? Ethiopia? Good luck buddy!

In fact, even getting cash at the ATM abroad becomes more tricky. Recently I got into the habit of just carrying cash for all my travels after I run nearly out of cash twice (Ethiopia and India). What do I carry? Euros! They did not want my dollars in Ethiopia because they were "not the latest series" (remember point 2?)

[brickcap]

The website is out of sync with our ideas. We need to update it. Apologies for any confusion caused.

If you don't see any new idea then can you at least see a concept that has been proven already by revolut. If so can you see a possibility that this concept can be taken further to include other businesses and banks? If you do can you can you imagine a scenario where ideas we suggest might be probable?

And if we are able to overcome the challenges you put forth would you say that this idea is a winner?

[brickcap]

The idea of posting it on hacker news is to make sure that if we can't do it someone else (better) can. There is a market. There is big money to be made. Banks are more receptive of startups than they've ever been. It'd be a shame to see this opportunity pass by.

Further we're not building a new bank. We're proposing to use the existing systems available, in any international bank today ,in a new way.

Simple was a challenger. We want to collaborate. Hacker news might just be the rabbit's foot!

[neffy]

What you´re describing isn´t a bank. It´s an international payment facilitator. There´s more competition in that space than you realise. If you want to be a bank, you´ll need to solve lending, and you should also investigate nostro/vostro accounts.