BBVA is closing Simple too. Lucky me, I use Azlo for my business and Simple for my personal :-(.

> 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 also have a Simple account. Over the last year I started using Chime more, and just had the Simple account because my happy US stimulus checks were getting deposited there.

I also use Mercury for my business stuff. So Chime + Mercury might be a good combo for you, depending on your needs.

Take a look at banknovo.com for your business account. We'd be happy to have you

I expect that your Azlo account (and mine) will move to BBVA and eventually PNC, like Simple (Personal Digital Bank owned by BBVA). See here: https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/07/bbva-says-that-it-is-shutt...

Azlo did a terrible job of letting us know to be honest, unless they don't know that if it will be part of BBVA or not.

Edit: I got this terrible canned response from Azlo.

"We're still working to understand exactly how this process will take place, and we're sorry that we don't have more to share at this time. That said, please rest assured that your account and experience will not be immediately impacted. We are still working out the timeline details with BBVA USA, but we expect this to be months, not weeks, and we will work with you as we learn how our closure will unfold.

We greatly appreciate your patience and please know that we're very sad about this; helping small businesses and entrepreneurs survive and thrive has brought us nothing but joy and fulfillment and we wish we could continue."

Guess I will be going elsewhere.

That's what I'm expecting too. I'm holding off on opening an account elsewhere for now, but yeah, would be nice to get clarity.

Yes, I'll wait to hear as well, but otherwise plan to move to Brex. Had a great experience with them in my first startup.

I agree, I did message them also over this. I picked up a Bluevine account incase, but it might be time to switch to a traditional brick and mortar bank for me. If they do move us to BBVA and then PNC though, that would be great.

Bummed about this, but there seems to be a plethora of alternatives:

- Rho: https://rho.co/

- Mercury: https://mercury.com/

- Radius Bank: https://radiusbank.com/business/

- BlueVine: https://www.bluevine.com/

- Novo: https://banknovo.com

- Wave Money: https://www.waveapps.com/money

- Brex Cash: https://www.brex.com/product/cash-management-account/

- Wise: https://www.wise.us/

- Relay: https://relayfi.com

Now if only there were a clear way to choose one. If anyone has any tips, I'm all ears.

I've been very happy with Mercury, possibly the most basic of offerings here compared to all the others but I haven't had any issues and they're constantly improving.

Genuinely curious since this is definitely outside of my wheelhouse, what are the reasons why a business might choose to go with one of these startups vs a larger bank, such as Wells Fargo? And at what point does the business outgrow these small startups?

These "digital first" banks are a lot more nimble for small businesses, and have almost none of the same fees that you'd see at a larger bank. And for a lot of us that run remote businesses, we don't deal in cash and therefore, don't need access to brick-and-mortar branches (which for me, is one of the few redeeming qualities for a larger bank).

However I will say... that the Achilles heel for these newer digital banks is customer service. If they're going to lean into doing everything on the internet, they need to be investing heavily into live customer support. That's been an issue for me with several banks in the past.

That's why Azlo was so great – customer service was superb!

I have business accounts with Chase, SVB and Mercury and Mercury is definitely the best experience for what I need. I'm sure you could outgrow its services pretty easily but for now it's perfect.

Plus I like all these challengers snapping at the incumbents, have you seen the SVB app and website, even Chase put them to shame.

I just signed up for Brex. The application process was fast and smooth. A couple things to note:

- It looks like they use Radius Bank under the hood

- There is no Plaid support (this is almost a dealbreaker for me, as I want to use accounting tools like YNAB)

We do have native plaid support (first to launch with Plaid Direct) at Novo

[0] https://banknovo.com

For folks interested, one alternative is Relay. Check it out here: https://relayfi.com/

You can sign up for an account using this link: https://app.relayfi.com/register?referralcode=Hackernews

Feedback on novo seems pretty horrible https://investorjunkie.com/reviews/novo/. Anyone have a god or bad experience to share?

Some of their feedback is valid which we have already improved on. We're working hard to build the best business bank ever.

I'm happy to connect. I'm the founder of Novo and have tens of thousands of happy clients.

@tmcpro – I'm in a similar situation as the rest of these people posting (Azlo customer now looking for a new bank). Can you elaborate on how you all have resolved the customer service issues that seem to be plaguing Novo on the review sites?

What, I just got Azlo account a week ago.

Good thing I've applied for an account with Mercury. Waiting through the long verification process...

But this definitely get me to think twice about using fintech banks. It could get closed down due to an acquisition of their parent bank.

Hello! Jason here from Mercury's customer onboarding team. I'm sorry to hear the verification process may be taking some time. I'd love to take a look to see where things are at, and help move thing along, if you'd be able to share your company name/email address (feel free to email us at onboarding@mercury.com). Thank you!

Thank you! I've sent you an email.

You should check out Novo (banknovo.com). Our application process takes <24 hours if you have all your business docs. If you finished your application today or tomorrow, we could have your account opened by Monday.

I guess we trade upfront convenience/less friction for potential catastrophic collapse on the back end. Depending on your biz it may or may not be worth it although most new founders have few brick and mortar options.

I am a happy customer of Mercury (https://mercury.com)

Mercury is not approving all applicants for some unknown reason and they can NOT tell me why

(I am the ceo of Mercury)

Sometimes a bank compliance team can not legally say why a bank applicant is not approved. In those situations we can also not tell an applicant that, that is the case.

Though that is pretty rare, if you email me your company name/email I can take a look to see if I can provide more insight. We generally try to accept everyone we can legally accept if they are not in a prohibited industry etc.

I just opened an account with you guys – super interested to give it a test drive.

Yes, happened to us as well.

What's stopping Mercury or Brex's partner bank from pulling the carpet out from under them too? The bank I switched away from to join Azlo is archaic and frustrating to deal with but I'm having second thoughts creating an account with another banking startup if it might close a few years later. I now have to inconvenience my clients and ask them to update the ACH information they have on file. I have no idea if there will be problems getting my money out either. I never expected this from a bank.

Alternatives I've seen mentioned on Twitter threads today: https://mercury.com/ https://www.brex.com/

Also take a look at Novo.

[0] https://banknovo.com

This is rather strange communication imo, with no timeline provided, no information as to why, or, well, anything. Looks like Stripe atlas still lets you use them as well, so maybe they didn't give others a heads up before this either?

BBVA is closing US operations. They haven’t had a massive presence here but their NBA card was pretty interesting.

It’s a pretty standard credit card, like 1% back on everything and 3% on NBA purchases. But it was 5% back on everything during the finals and all-star weekend.

Those two weeks were wild, probably ten thousand plus people buying tens of thousands of dollars of Visa & MasterCard gift cards to liquidate via money orders and repeat for a ~3.5% profit.

They changed the rules like a day after the first finals week, $5,000 cap on the 5%. I can’t imagine they had anticipated the magnitude of the response!

Anyway, I generally suggest getting

All these virtual banks have one major issue - you can't deposit cash and some businesses do have cash income, unfortunately. Withdrawing cash given the ATM limits is also an issue. Not all cash is bad! I organize festivals and although we heavily advertise that we take credit cards, checks, etc., although it costs us money, 50% of the people still prefer to pay cash. And with these virtual banks, what do I do with it? Deposit it into my personal account and write a check for the same amount to the business?!

You would just convert the cash into a money order, and then deposit it that way. Alternatively, some of these digital banks (like BlueVine) actually do allow you to deposit cash. From BlueVine's website:

"Yes, you can deposit both cash and checks with your BlueVine Business Bank account. Deposit checks anywhere, anytime through our mobile app by taking a photo of your check and deposit cash at 90,000+ retail locations with our partnership with Green Dot. For a list of locations, visit https://www.attheregister.com/locations."

This is what I found about Green Dot's cash deposit: "The most you can deposit to your account in cash is $2,999 in the aggregate in any day. You also may not deposit cash to your account at any time your account balance exceeds $2,999. We may, in our sole discretion, let you deposit more money to your account if you deposit by direct deposit or other methods."

Moneypak is even worse - $5.95 per $500 (max).

Green Dot has limits and you it costs you a lot to deposit $10,000 - not to mention the hassle. I didn't know that you can you deposit a cashier's check via a mobile app! I will check that, thank you!

Yep should work just like a regular mobile check deposit

Azlo, abruptly announced that they were going to be closing shop in the next month or so. They had recently been sold to PNC Bank by BBVA, and employees and customers had been given no advance notice of the impending closure. Novo is the best Azlo alternative on the market for those businesses. Use the link to see why http://bit.ly/BankNovo

Simple just closed also (BBVA also).

Looks like BBVA is making some changes.

If it helps anyone, I put together a Twitter thread running through my top Azlo alternatives https://twitter.com/ryanzanardi/status/1348695099518169093?s...

Looks like BBVA is shutting down all of its "startup bank" acquisitions? Simple is also shutting down today.

Yeah, selling their US operations entirely

Sad... I use Blue Vine also and they have been great and supportive for small business entrepreneurs

Looks interesting. Like that it is based in RWC. THX!

Just go with an actual known bank or credit union, to much gamble in these 3rd party entities. I caved in and went with Bank of America, I will eventually switch my business to Navy Federal credit union when I have time to actually go to the credit union

Got the email too. On the one hand it’s nice I guess they wanted to tell people ASAP. On the other hand it’s disconcerting there is no transition plan or information shared. Seems like waiting a few days for that would have been better.

I'm sorry to hear.. I used AZLO for business affairs.. It's very sad to see this happen..This bank was a very good bank. I hate this happen..

Related ongoing discussion about Simple: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25674964

Any idea if another backend bank will pick up these accounts? Would be much easier to stay with Azlo while they sort out their banking partner vs having to completely transition everything.

Try out Novo

[0] https://banknovo.com

Just applied, but to be frank, I'm a bit hesitant given the bad press so far. Can you speak to the improvements you all have made recently to remedy those issues (mostly centered around customer support)?

I switched to Brext. Happy so far!

I'm using Brext now!