On: The slippery slope

[zallarak]

Very well written. When you turn against your customers' welfare, you're almost always going down a path of failure in the long run.

[z-factor → zallarak]

Banks seem to be doing ok.

[barrkel → z-factor]

Generally, it's illegal not to use banks beyond a certain point.

That is, transporting large amounts of cash is strong evidence of criminal behaviour, is subject to seizure, etc.

[tomjen3 → barrkel]

It is illegal to transport more than a certain amount of money over the (US) border unless you declare it.

[rocky1138 → z-factor]

For now. It's only a matter of time before a startup or two breaks that industry down just like they have for many others.

[Wingman4l7 → rocky1138]

Things like regulatory capture make it hard for small players to get started in entrenched industries. Some examples: telecommunications (getting leases on existing pipes to sell your services), meat processing (look at the regs that small producers like Polyface Farms have to comply with), car manufacturing (look at the opposition Tesla is facing trying to sell direct to the consumer) -- and yes, banking.

[sudonim → rocky1138]

I'm a happy customer of both Simple.com and USAA. Both are very customer focused banks. The industry is being broken down, just really really slowly.

[SilasX → sudonim]

I think there's an analogous problem with encryption and GPG: like with credit unions (USAA in particular) there's an easy solution out there, but relatively few people use it.

[studentrob → sudonim]

Just curious, what benefits do you get from simple.com that USAA does not provide? I looked at it in the beginning but it didn't seem to add anything, perhaps that's changed.

[sudonim → studentrob]

That's a great question. I like the experience of simple. I get push notifications when I swipe my card. I enjoy the "Safe to spend" amount that takes into account my goals. Photo check deposit is great too. It's early days for them, but I like backing that horse.

USAA is a great company. They give you ATM fee reimbursements which is a huge benefit over simple. I feel guilty getting them since they have to eat that cost. In dealing with them, they're always pleasant and friendly, but they have policies like photo check deposit is only available if you're ex-military.

Hope that helps!

[superuser2 → studentrob]

Serving customers who aren't military or from military families?

[sudonim → superuser2]

You can open a bank account with USAA if you're non-military. However, some of their other services are not available to you.

[superuser2 → sudonim]

Like mobile check deposit, which is a big deal if you don't live near a branch.

[SilasX → rocky1138]

How long until a Silicon Valley startup cracks the hard problem of low-margin heroin smuggling?

[superuser2 → rocky1138]

Would you trust your savings to a startup? Maybe if there was FDIC insurance. Would you expect the federal government to trust everyone's money to startups?

No way.

While banks may be horrible to their retail customers, the regulations that protect them exist for a reason. The current state of affairs is far, far better than having hundreds of thousands of banks which could fail and drop off the map with all of their customers' assets at any time.

FDIC insurance has changed that, but a prudent insurance company would not insure a startup bank, or if it did, it would need to collect so much for that risk that the startup bank couldn't offer anything competitive. The FDIC is almost certainly not going to do this.

Simple is a UI on top of a traditional bank.