Seven years ago, we set out to help people feel more confident with their money. And that remains our driving force. We started by offering real-time insight into what’s Safe-to-Spend, so our customers would always know how much money they can spend today without hurting themselves tomorrow. With Block Card, we delivered the power to instantly freeze your account with a phone or computer. We also know that confidence comes from understanding how to balance regular monthly expenses, lifelong dreams, and everything in between, so we tackled that by offering automated savings with our Goals feature.

Each of these features was an industry first, but most importantly, each was designed for how people, not banks, think about money.

This customer-centric approach to product design is at the core of how and why Simple exists. Last year, it was reflected in our decision to introduce a host of new features.

We’ve rapidly grown our customer base while building a product that our community loves. In fact, last year, we saw a 10% monthly customer increase, a growth rate that typically requires the support of hundreds of bank branches and thousands of employees. (We did it all from our Portland home base, with a team just shy of 300 people.)

At the same time, our team was also working together, hand-in-hand, on Simple’s most significant project to date: a complete rebuild of our ‘banking backend’ in preparation for opening new accounts supported by BBVA Compass (BBVAC), our parent company BBVA’s U.S. arm. (If you want to know more about BBVAC now, go here, but I’ll get to all the important pieces below).

The main news: after months of rigorous testing, we’re ready, and we’re opening our first BBVAC-powered Simple accounts. ‘Banking backend?’ you may be thinking; what?

Basically, we’re moving

So, what does this mean?

Until now, every Simple account has been supported by The Bancorp Bank, our first partner bank. As we move, BBVAC will play that role for the next chapter. Much like Simple’s physical moves over the years – from my basement, to our first New York office, to our new headquarters in Portland – this change furthers our growth and continues to help people, like you, feel confident about your money.

We’re also pretty excited to be working with a partner who boasts the country’s first real-time banking core, which is a bit like the first jet engine for banking.

For Simple, the difference will be on the backend, so while you may not see the changes, we’ll be able to perform many banking operations in ‘real-time’ that would be daily with most other banks. With BBVAC, we can build more products, with more features, and more tools, faster, while increasing direct ownership over how we design our banking operations.

So, what does our move mean for you if you’re a Simple customer?

What will change, and what won’t

The heart of Simple will remain the same. Our mission, vision, values, business model, and most importantly the deep care we have for our customers all remain unchanged. When you need support, your questions will always be answered by a person who cares. Stickers and drawings will still pop up from time-to-time in our chats and mails. And the way Simple looks and feels will not change – we won’t even change the color of your new card.

New customers on BBVAC will use our newly designed, fully-mobile sign-up process to get their Simple accounts, and most will be up and running in less than 5 minutes! This is a dramatic difference from the industry, where opening an account can take hours or even days. This shift is made possible by our deep partnership with BBVAC, marrying Simple’s strengths in user experience design with our innovative, friendly approach to compliance.

We’re also gearing up to launch some of our community’s most requested products and features later this year. I’ll save the details on those until we’re closer to go-time, but suffice it to say, we’re giddy.

So, what’s next?

Our team has approached this move with care and a great deal of planning, all with the desire to minimize its impact on you.

Because of this, there’s no action for now, but we want to make sure you know that starting now, some of our customers will be backed by BBVAC, while others will continue receiving the same customer experience they know and love with The Bancorp. While these two partners are very similar today, all new banking features will be added only to Simple accounts supported by BBVAC.

We’ll reach out to each of our customers directly when it’s time to move to BBVAC, and we’ll continue to share info along the way so you can take full advantage of what’s to come.

From our humble basement beginnings, and beyond – we’re happy you’re part of Simple and hope you’ll continue with us on our journey. Joining BBVA Compass hasn’t changed Simple’s mission to help you be more confident with your money. Learn more here

Curious to learn more? Check out our FAQ page.