[suresk]

I'm genuinely curious - what is Simple doing that is disrupting the banking industry (excluding, of course, the current literal disruption of banking for their customers)?

My current setup is a cash-back credit card, with the bills for it paid from a high-yield savings account. I net close to 2% cash back on the card, and around .8% APR on the savings account, and pay exactly $0 in fees. Based on the language on Simple's site, I'm guessing the APR on their savings is closer to .25% or so, and they definitely don't offer cash back on the use of their card.

Sure, the tools they offer are nice, but my credit card provider also has pretty nice spending analysis tools (that don't require an iOS device), and lots of other providers are adding or improving spending tools as well.

What am I missing?

[wmf]

IIRC the original innovations of Simple were (1) usable UI (including mobile) and (2) a single account that's debit and credit. #1 has been mostly caught up by traditional banks and #2 mostly benefits financially irresponsible people (of which there are many, but perhaps not many around here).

[suresk]

I may be misunderstanding you re: #2, but it their Simple card appears to just be a debit card with no overdraft protection.

[wmf]

Their original claim from 2010 was "We will launch later this year with a simple card with in built checking, savings, rewards and a line of credit." Since they're still in invite-only beta, maybe not all of the features have been implemented yet.