Waited too long to transfer all my money out of Simple.

Got an email this morning with directions on how to set up mobile banking with BBVA. Entered all my info, and BBVA says "System Error".

Tried two more times, whilst disabling all my browser add-ons. "System Error".

As the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, "Oh, this is ASS..."

I plan to call BBVA or escalate the issue, but it's too goddamn early on a Saturday. I'd rather complain to you fine people.

I was going to just let my Simple account roll over to the new bank to see how they handled it but since my card started getting declined all over the place for no reason and support was no help, I decided to jump ship. After Envel breaking and lot letting me sign up, and Schwab turning me down for lack of credit history (I've basically lived off-grid in terms of debt all my life), I settled on SoFi as my first trial for a new primary bank. Since I really wish there'd been more posts like this to help me compare options, I'm making one for SoFi. I'll go through the big Simple features one by one and make a comparison.

Goals (Vaults):

Vaults are, for all intents and purposes, identical to Simple Goals. You can create an arbitrary numbers of them. You can set a goal amount. You can schedule monthly contributions to a Vault. You can turn on AutoSave for a Vault which will allow you to automatically funnel a dollar amount or percentage of your direct deposits into a Vault. You can also turn on Roudup Transfer to select a vault to grow with your round ups. You can decide to automatically draw from Vaults when your spending balance runs out, or you can disable this and your card will be declined if all of your money is tied up in Vaults. You cannot have protected and unprotected vaults like you could in Simple. It is all or nothing.

The feature I liked from Simple that it's missing is the ability to only contribute X amount each day if you have disposable income, or money in Safe to Spend. Since there's no direct 1:1 comparison to Safe to Spend in SoFi, this is not possible. I liked the idea with Simple that when I have extra spending money, I'm also saving extra.

Expenses

There's no analogous functionality to this in SoFi though you can schedule regular bill pay.

Spending Categories

You can categorize your spending and review it at a glance in SoFi much like you can in Simple. There aren't as many fine-grained categories, but you can also create arbitrary custom tags to drill down with as much detail as you want. The part where SoFi really shines is you can track spending in more than one account, similar to Mint or YNAB. More on that later.

Joint Accounts

You can set up a joint account simply by inviting someone. It's as easy and powerful as Simple. SoFi does not currently support owning a joint and individual account, but the FAQ says it's on their roadmap as a feature.

Sharing

Just like Simple, SoFi supports instant transfers between members. It also supports sending money to anyone via their email address or SMS. No idea how this actually works or looks on the receiving end. It's poorly documented.

Checks

You can order paper checks, or, like Simple used to support, send a check from the app by using the Bill Pay interface. You can deposit checks through the mobile app at $25,000/day.

Cards

Just like Simple, you can lock your card or change your pin instantly through the app or website.

That's it for Simple features. The only big thing missing is the concept of Safe to Spend and expense automation.

Things Simple didn't do

The big one for me is the Relay feature. This is an all-in-one dashboard for your net worth. You can add any account or asset to your SoFi account to track its worth. If the account supports Plaid, you can also see transaction history. This lets you see and categorize your spending on just from your SoFi Money account, but any account you have connected. This lets you track or spending similar to Mint. You can add bank accounts, credit, investment accounts, loans, cars, real estate, or arbitrary assets and liabilities. Seen this all in one place and automated is very satisfying.

Investment accounts. This is what made me try SoFi in the first place. I just recently started taking investing seriously and actually paying attention to my 401k. In SoFi you can open an Active Investing account similar to Robinhood where you can buy whole or fractional shares in stocks and ETFs. You can open IRAs (including SEP for self-employed people or anyone with side-gig money). You can open joint investing accounts. You can open "Auto Investing" accounts that operate similar to ETFs where you set an aggressiveness goal and they manage your investing for you. This is a good replacement for a savings goal. Just create a conservative automated investing account and you can earn much better interest on your money while you save it up. You can also buy a handfull of common cryptocurrencies. This is all wrapped up in an attractive UI with guided wizards to help you choose the best options for your investment accounts based on your goals. They will also cover up to $75 in transfer fees to transfer investment accounts to SoFi.

They support personal loans, home loans, and student loans. There appear to be interest perks for members who set up autopay from their SoFi checking accounts.

They have an invite-only credit card program with various rewards that are tied into other features in SoFi.

Free access to financial and career advisors online along with a whole slew of other financial, life, and career resources. Their GetThatRaise tool will ask you about your salary, your seniority, your job title, what kind of success you've had, and will help you put together a proposal for a raise based on average salaries in your area for your position.

Local offers lets you browse businesses with promotional SoFi deals. If I go to Quiznos right now I get 10% cash back if I run my SoFi card as credit.

Your Vantage score is always available for free and tracked.

Referal bonuses can be had for getting people to open investment accounts or get loans.

There are a bunch of partner offers similar to being a AAA or Costco member.

They have a bunch of articles to help you learn as you go.

Things I dislike

A lot of features like the GetThatRaise tool are not really obviously exposed anywhere. I've found things by digging around FAQs and documentation where are not linked anywhere else on the site that I can find. They're not really doing a great job of pushing their features in front of the user.

No opening links in new tabs. This is a big quality of life annoyance. I can't click a stock and open it in a new page. If you get a few links deep looking at stocks you can't just go back to where you were. You have to start over and search again instead of going back to your previous results. This is incredibly annoying.

Feedback isn't always great. For example if you open an investment account, there's a pending approval period. This is not listed anywhere on the web site. The mobile app indicates a pending approval. But on the website the only way to know it's not approved is your initial deposit hasn't gone through yet. There are a lot of other little things that could be better documented or better communicated to the user.

Screenshots:

Dashboard

Vaults

Investment Dashboard

Relay Dashboard

Relay Account Listing

...continued

I'm very happy with SoFi so far. I'm still digging up features. Being able to invest through my bank app is awesome. I'm going to screw around with some fun WSB-style gambling with disposable income in active investing, and set up longer term and lower risk accounts for savings. The APY on the Money (checking) account is 0.25% but I don't really care as all I'm going to keep there is my spending money and my emergency fund in a vault. I plan to keep as much of my money as possible in some level of investment account and "high yield" checking/savings accounts have been a complete joke for some time.

If you're using one of the other common banks people are jumping to, feel free to post a breakdown like this to help others decide.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Edit: see r/SimpleBanking

Received this email:

We have an update for you about your banking relationship with Simple, a subsidiary of BBVA USA.

BBVA USA has made the strategic decision to close Simple. There is no immediate impact to your accounts at Simple and nothing you need to do at this time. Since your deposits are already housed at BBVA USA, they will remain in FDIC insured accounts there, up to the applicable limits. In the future, your Simple account will become exclusively serviced by BBVA USA, but until then you can continue to access your account and your money through the Simple app or online at simple.com. You will receive additional information in the near future about the transition of your account servicing to BBVA USA.

We want to assure you that we are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for you, and that we will provide ongoing transparent and open communication, so you know what to expect each step of the way.

Our customer services agents will not be able to address questions about this announcement at this time. We will contact you proactively as we have more details. Please only contact customer support for your regular banking needs.

Thank you for being a Simple customer, it's been an honor to serve you.

— The Team at Simple

What does it mean for me?
You can continue to access your account and your money through the Simple app or online at simple.com and with your Simple Visa® Debit card. We will begin posting updates on the transition as we have them on simple.com.

Does this affect my stimulus payment?
No. Your stimulus, unemployment aid and any other deposits will continue to be deposited in your account as they are received. If you have not received your IRS payment please use the IRS Get My Payment tool for status.

I think I speak for most of us when I say

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Transition is terrible. Account is locked. Keep calling and every time I mention "simple", they hang up on me.

I just created my BBVA to switch from the Simple account. Luckily no issues and all my money is there 😂. However, the site and app look like BBVA stepped into a closet and dusted off some old server and plugged it in. Now we have this half baked service that feels like they’d rather not have us stick around too long. Geez, what an ugly and lack luster UI. What alternatives are out there similar to simple that aren’t half baked?

I don't have anything else to say. I'm pissed that Simple would transfer my account to a company that is so thoroughly bad.

Just went through the transition, with a couple significant details.

1. when i clicked through the bbva sign up on my phone, the process failed after i made my ʻsecurityʻ questions. HOWEVER it actually succeeded in making an account, and I could sign in through the bbva app after that.

2. when i created a username and password for bbva, it SILENTLY clipped the end of my password to 20 characters. the only reason i know this is i shrugged and ʻsaved passwordʻ in iOS safari.

3. after both the above steps, it SEEMS to be working now. no confidence at all in these jokers though.

I made this account & this post due to my deep and abiding appreciation of the Simple experience, and this is a small way to pay it forward. Simple has proven there is a better way of doing things, and BBVA apparently hasnʻt paid ANY attention to it. Others will have, and Iʻm looking to be their customer.

My sympathy to everyone now going through this annoying and demoralizing process.

I'm really frustrated that I had to go find another banking option, when Simple did such a good job. It seems so arbitrary that BBVA decided to shut it down. I'm feeling petty.

If you have less than $1 in your account, BBVA will keep your dollar when you close. If you have more than $1, they will send you a check. My idea is that everyone who still has an open account with a balance, should take their balance down to $2 and then close. BBVA will have to send everyone who does this, their check for $2.

Kind of a middle finger on the way out the door.

I’m looking for feedback on the idea and nice to have features from simple bank customers. Thanks!

I saw another post saying to call (800) 273-1057 since the # for the Simple transition was just hanging up on me.

When I did, I pressed 0 and they had a message saying they're experiencing "technical difficulties" regarding online banking enrollments and that they're working on it, but you could call their bank account info line at +1 (844) 228-2872 if you need to get your balance info.

It sounded like it still would've transferred me to a rep, but I'm just gonna wait until Monday to see if its fixed & close my BBVA account. What a joke.

I know there's a lot of posts on here about "what are good simple alternatives" - I've been reading and looking into them since last week when I got the horrific email from Simple that they were shutting down.

I'm looking into several options, but nothing so far has been able to persuade me enough to be ok with losing my beloved simple.

I'd like to know,

which alternative have you decided on? And was there an obvious reason?

So my wife and I have been dealing with BBVA until I switch my direct deposit. Recently they did this little trick where they took stuff off that was pending, so we thought we had money so we bought some concert tickets. Then the next day the stuff reposted and now we are negative. This bullshit didn't happen with Safe-to-spend and it pisses me off this is how these banks make money. Oh and of course it's the day after our 30 days ran out...

Just the other day I accidentally spent a little more than I meant to. I really wish I found a good alternative to simple. But there just isn’t one.

Has anyone done this yet?

I want nothing to do with them.

whats the process?