Last month Alex Payne, one of the principles behind Twitter, left to join BankSimple as co-founder and Chief Product and Technology Officer. With the promise of “fee-free, customer-friendly and beautifully designed online bank(ing)”, is the race to fully move the Banking industry into the online world a go?

Payne asks we imagine a bank for a moment as;
“A bank that doesn’t gouge you with fees.
A bank that doesn’t treat you like crap.
A bank that cares about design, but gets out of your way.
A bank that puts your money to work automatically.
A bank that’s building a platform for the future of personal finance.”

Citing Spain’s La Caixa’s ATM server where users can purchase movie, opera, sport and museum tickets, and Kenya’s M-PESA’s mobile phone money transfer system, Shamir Karkal of BankSimple asks why America has dropped so far behind the rest of the world in bank technology. Karkal feels that it’s legacy systems that are holding the US back. BankSimple will start with a clean slate and therefore be able to reshape the way its services work.

BankSimple’s comments on ATM fees:
“We have the largest fee free nationwide ATM network. We will also reimburse some ATM fees for some non-network ATMs for those times when it is more convenient for you.”

How to deposit a cheque in a virtual bank?
“Take a photo of the check with your smart phone and send it to us with our app. Pretty simple, right?”

And the fifty thousand dollar question, how do you make money with no fees?
“We make money from two sources: interchange and interest margin. Interest margin is the revenue earned from lending, less what they pay on deposits.... Interchange is a small revenue source that card issuing banks earn whenever that card is used at a store...”.

BankSimple will initially only be available in the US but if they do come to Canada will you open a BankSimple account? Do you trust the BankSimple founders more than you trust the executive of your current bank?