Banking is an area of online commerce that too often uses the Internet to clothe the same old inefficiency and customer disservice. I get all the bells and whistles, along with disappointments like paying five dollars a month for accounts with no activity, and no notification in the form of an IM or e-mail that I might be dangerously close to getting charged an overdraft fee. (You would think that if a person is overdrawn once in five years that he’s probably not trying to game the system in any way and that his bank wouldn’t treat him like a deadbeat.)
Banksimple is an online bank slated to launch later this year that aims to provide feature that ordinary people will actually appreciate, like no overdraft fees or hidden charges. It caught my eye because one of the principles is Alex Payne, ex-Twitter API lead. Offering innovations such as check deposit via a photograph that you take of the check with your phone, it appears that Banksimple will leverage technology to keep their expenses low and their operation relatively simple. Stay tuned, I’ll review it post-launch, because I for one am ready for a change…
