[jonprins]

It's right on their page. Under 'Find a new alternative:'

"However, BankSimple is not a "bank." We partner with chartered banks who provide FDIC-insured products, leaving us free to concentrate on designing the complete consumer banking experience, via the web and your smartphone."

[RexRollman]

I hope that never leads to a "hot potatoe" situation when there is a problem.

[jrockway]

That's kind of like saying you won't use web services because you don't want a "hot potatoe" [sic] problem between your ISP and their ISP when there is an issue.

Businesses contract out services all the time. In this case, BankSimple is using some established company to store your money. They just provide the web interface and someone to yell at when there is a problem.

[lotusleaf1987]

FUD.

[owenmarshall]

Sure, it might be fear, uncertainty, and doubt on the part of adopters. But rightly so -- if there's one place where people are going to be conservative, it's with their banks.

The very first thing I did when I hit BankSimple.com was CTRL+F "FDIC". One tiny mention in a blog preview 2/3ds of the page down. That doesn't cut it.

It's BankSimple's job to inspire confidence in their offering. Their front page seems to spends more time talking in vague terms about how their service is going to be mobile centric, and how they're going to put me first. What their service is all about, and how it works -- the things I care about -- are buried and quite vague.

[RexRollman]

Hardly.