Disruptive banking start-up BankSimple has announced partnerships with Visa, The Bancorp Bank and CBW Bank and secured a further $10 million in funding ahead of its planned launch later this year.
The latest round of financing was led by current investor IA Ventures and joined by existing investors and Shasta Ventures. It follows an initial round of $3.1 million raised in September last year.
In a blog post, BankSimple founder Joshua Reich, says: "This financing allows us to shift gears from building BankSimple to launching BankSimple. Our business has many moving parts and this capital allows us to scale our engineering, operations, and customer service organisations in preparation for launch."
BankSimple is seeking to take advantage of public disillusionment with financial services firms by building a streamlined, information-rich experience for customers.
The partnership with Visa will open access to the card scheme's global merchant network, while customer deposits will be housed by FDIC-insured Bancorp Bank and CBW Bank.
BankSimple has also partnered with the Allpoint ATM network, and signed deals with tech firms TxVia for its core platform and Andera for online account opening.
Says Reich: "While customers' deposits will be held at our partner banks and card payments will be supported by Visa, the customer experience is solely designed by BankSimple. Our customers will manage their finances through our web and mobile apps, which are driven by our real-time accounting systems and meta-data services. When customers call BankSimple, their calls will be routed to our own customer service staff via a call center platform developed by BankSimple."
In May, BankSimple issued its first white-label cards to staff for a limited beta-test. Reich says this test will soon be expanded to "friends and family" in advance of a formal commercial launch before the year is out.
BankSimple White Card Testing from BankSimple on Vimeo.