banksimple industry financial services founded 2009 2009 in brooklyn founder shamir karkal alex payne joshua reich headquarters portland oregon area served united states key people joshua reich ceo shamir karkal cfo number of employees over 300 nov 2015 parent banco bilbao vizcaya argentaria 1 website simple.com footnotes references 2 3 4 5 simple is an american direct bank based in portland oregon . the company provides fdic insured checking accounts through a partnership with the bancorp 2 and is part of the star network for surcharge free access to around 55 000 atms . 2 since 2014 simple has been part of the bbva group one of the largest banks in europe . 1 6 contents 1 history 2 business model 3 features 4 references 5 external links history edit what was initially known as banksimple was founded in 2009 in brooklyn 7 by former cto alex payne ceo joshua reich and cfo shamir karkal . 3 in august 2011 the company raised 10 million from investors led by ia ventures shasta ventures 8 and dave mcclure s fund 500 startups . later that month the company moved its headquarters to portland where five of the company s 17 employees already resided . 8 the company launched in the summer of 2012 as a limited beta . 3 9 by january 2013 the company had 20 000 customers and had processed more than 200 million in transactions . 10 by july 2013 its customers had increased to 40 000 and total transaction values increased to greater than 1 billion . 4 at year s end in 2013 simple reported processing on average around 13 debit transactions per minute with an overall customer balance of 64 million . 5 on february 20 2014 simple announced it had been acquired by banco bilbao vizcaya argentaria bbva a global banking group with 820 billion in assets that shares our passion for innovative technology and customer experience . 1 paying through its us subsidiary bbva compass . 6 bbva acquired simple for 117 million or about 1200 per customer . 11 bbva was also part of the initial venture funding ; it originally became interested in simple in 2011 when a co founder of simple criticized the technology of banks and their approach to customer service . 12 business model edit in contrast with traditional consumer banks simple has no physical branches . 13 instead account holders are issued visa debit cards and have access to an online banking system accessible through simple.com or mobile apps for android or ios . simple earns revenue by collecting interest on customer deposits and through the collection of interchange fees . 2 features edit simple mobile apps became available for ios and android in may 2011 and january 2013 respectively . 14 15 checks up to 3 000 usd are deposited through simple s smartphone apps or for any amount by postal mail or express courier . all deposits are subject to a hold regardless of customer status . a bill pay service prints checks and mails them to specified recipients . however simple does not provide blank checks for customers nor will checks printed by a third party be honored . simple s online banking interface integrates hashtag searching memos and location based information for users transaction history . using the goals feature account holders are able to schedule automatic savings on a daily basis . references edit a b c joshua reich 20 february 2014 . the next chapter . simple . a b c d simple faq . simple . a b c reich joshua 2012 07 25 . the beginning . simple . retrieved 2013 08 07 . a b reich joshua 2013 07 15 . one year with our customers . simple . retrieved 2013 08 07 . a b simple 2013 . simple . retrieved 2013 12 30 . a b bbva acquires digital banking service pioneer simple press release . bbva compass . retrieved 20 february 2014 . jeffries adrianne 25 august 2011 . brooklyn not friendly and passionate enough for banksimple start up moves to portland . betabeat.com . retrieved 2014 07 24 . a b rogoway mike 24 august 2011 . promising nyc startup banksimple moves hq to portland . the oregonian . retrieved 2014 07 24 . kincaid jason 2011 11 11 . banksimple is now just simple . techcrunch . retrieved 2013 02 12 . a financial service for people fed up with banks . the new york times . david wolman february 26 2014 . the bank and the anti bank . the new yorker . retrieved 26 january 2015 . william alden february 20 2014 . bbva buys banking start up simple for 117 million . ny times . retrieved 26 january 2015 . can banksimple live up to its name . gigaom . robertson adi 2012 05 09 . banking substitute simple releases iphone app . the verge . retrieved 2013 02 12 . jeffries adrianne 2013 01 15 . simple s online only banking app launches on android . the verge . retrieved 2013 02 12 . external links edit wikimedia commons has media related to simple bank . official website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title simple bank & oldid 742437201 categories 2009 establishments in new yorkfinancial services companies of the united statessoftware companies of the united statestechnology companies established in 2009hidden categories commons category with local link same as on wikidata navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages add links this page was last modified on 3 october 2016 at 18 17 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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