I don't get what the confusion is. "Simple" (generic name, weak branding..) is a middle-man between banks and you.
Why?
-They have multiple backend banks, so I suppose that keeps you the customer from getting locked into one bank's crappy fee policy.
-They can focus on customer satisfaction and UI rather than be bogged down by becoming a "real" bank.
Any doubts about their trustworthiness because they're not a bank is nothing but FUD, since they explicitly stated multiple times that your money is in a bank.
Sorry that you think the name is "weak" and "generic", but I'm glad that you get what we're doing.
"Simple" is definitely a generic term, but brands are built over time. Personally, I love our new logo (by our own @3n), and I think it'll resonate when you start seeing it on actual debit cards and such :)
The logo though. Good type, horrible website icon. It has the Star of David on it. The only ethnicity to Google auto-complete to banking conspiratorial pages is represented by this symbol. There are lots of idiots in the world, I know, but I wouldn't go with this logo. The one on the actual card is much, much better.
Obviously, I support your business idea, and I look forward to it shaking banks up a bit. If the product is strong enough, a generic brand won't kill the business. I still believe
BankSimple was a better name (in my opinion), as it actually positioned you as a new player in a game to change the status quo. I can understand if there were potential legal issues with a non-bank calling itself a bank. If this is the reason a change was made, then I'm wasting my keystrokes.
My thinking is that an innovative, abstract replacement for banking will either float or sink on the strength of its offering and subsequent word-of-mouth. My mother wouldn't ever sign up for this on her own regardless of what it's called, but in time, I might be able to get her to use it if it's good. A descriptive brand name is almost irrelevant for a company like this.
Now, the other angle here is that banking might simply be their entree into the abstraction business at large. So maybe today I bank through Simple, but in a few years I buy insurance through them. And maybe my cell phone plan.
There's a lot of confusion and noise interfering with the efficiency of consumer markets as mediums of value exchange. Abstraction, quantification, and objective selection could be a neat way to cut down on some of the inefficiency, misinformation, and confusion.
Why?
-They have multiple backend banks, so I suppose that keeps you the customer from getting locked into one bank's crappy fee policy.
-They can focus on customer satisfaction and UI rather than be bogged down by becoming a "real" bank.
Any doubts about their trustworthiness because they're not a bank is nothing but FUD, since they explicitly stated multiple times that your money is in a bank.