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I've been a Simple customer and have nothing but good things to report. As a bank, they provide pretty much all basic services, except for perhaps cash deposit (something I haven't needed to use in years). You can use any ATM out there. You'll probably get charged a fee by the ATM itself, but that's something I can live with. Most of the time, I try to get enough cashback when I get my groceries to cover my very minimal cash needs. Where Simple really shines though is in two areas: 1) General non-sucky-ness. It's not a single feature, but rather the quality of the overall experience. The support features makes it really easy to write a textual query right in the regular dashboard or mobile app, and they usually reply within hours. There's no calling robotic phone lines and spending 30min in menus or on hold… The website itself is beautiful and extremely usable. Unlike, say, Bank of America Online, the emotion you feel while navigating simple.com is delight, not frustration and exasperation. 2) Goals and Safe to Spend. When you open either the app or the website, there is a very visible balance amount. The trick is, it is not your actual account balance, but rather what Simple calls your Safe-to-Spend balance. Simple has a goals section, in which you can set up goals you wish to achieve by a certain date, as well as reserved funds (eg. an emergency fund). Simple takes all of that information into account, as well as recurring bills such as rent payments and subtracts it from the money it considers safe to spend. It's great, it has really had a positive impact on my finances. I've never been good at budgeting, but through the way Simple handles Safe-to-Spend, it has kind of forced me into better consumption patterns. |