Simple Bank Is Simply Broken

While it is a well accepted idiom that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, the corollary wisdom that the path to simplicity is often paved with cacophonous confusion is often overlooked. That is a shame for the powers that be at Simple, an online banking venture that seems to become more complex by the minute.

Following an acquisition by BBVA for $1117 million that left the company still operating independently and an upgrade ruled by TechCrunch to have been disastrous, the bank continues to suffer from a plethora of glitches that complicate (and reportedly ruin) functions such as online bill pay, balance updates, funds transfers–in short, the banking functions of the bank.

“Simple is a broken bank and failing to live up to the promises made by its name. While the interface for the new mobile apps, Simple 2.0, is nice enough, the underlying system is clearly damaged,” the story said. Simple has had staff “working around the clock” since the problems began, but the trickle-down effect is that “a lot of things that once made Simple great are now no more,” wrote TechCrunch’s reviewer.

The review said that the app’s higher goals–real time updates on spending, allowing of personal goals to be set and tracked through the banking app–all remain good ideas. However, if users can’t trust balance information on the screen in real-time, the bank is failing at its core function and until that is resolved and features built upon that, the foundation will likely sink into the morass of a half-baked application.