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Shutdown of Portland online banker Simple is a mess; clients lost access to their money

By Mike Rogoway, oregonlive.com
Published: May 10, 2021, 8:04am

PORTLAND — Customers of Portland online banker Simple lost access to their accounts over the weekend as its parent company bungled Simple’s planned shutdown.

“This has not been a good conversion experience for many of you,” parent bank BBVA wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “We know this, and we sincerely apologize.”

Founded in 2009, Simple was among the most prominent of a generation of Portland tech startups that emerged in the aftermath of its Great Recession. It pioneered a no-fee, mobile banking service customized for smartphones and won a devoted following among clients who enjoyed its straightforward approach and tools to encourage people to build their savings.

Simple never gained widespread popularity, though, and suffered a series of operational problems while many larger banks adopted the banking tools similar to Simple’s innovations. Simple sold to Spanish banker BBVA in 2014 for $117 million but didn’t fit neatly into BBVA’s portfolio.

In January, BBVA announced it would shut down the Portland banker and eliminate the bulk of its 220 jobs, transferring bank accounts from Simple to BBVA. It called the shutdown a “strategic decision.”

That shutdown took place on schedule Saturday, but the account transfers did not go well.

“It has been a horrible transition so far,” one client wrote on Twitter. “I can’t access my money at the moment.”

Many others reported they couldn’t get through to BBVA’s phone lines to seek help, or that the bank’s customer service personnel put them on hold for long periods – and then hung up.

“We know not having online and mobile access to your account is unacceptable, and we will continue to do all we can to make this right,” BBVA tweeted Sunday. The bank said its phone lines were overwhelmed.

Later Sunday, BBVA said debit cards, ATMs and scheduled transactions were performing normally – but it acknowledged other problems were continuing. Customers reported ongoing issues Monday morning.

BBVA indicated it hadn’t anticipated how quickly former Simple customers would try to enroll in online and mobile banking services after the transition.

“There were technical difficulties with the enrollment process, leading to high call volume in our call centers, which overwhelmed the system, and created longer than normal wait times,” BBVA said in a statement Monday.

“We know this conversion process was not smooth for our incoming Simple customers and we sincerely apologize to them,” the bank said. “We are working to make it right, with people working around the clock, and taking actions like extending hours in our call center and adding staff to handle the incoming calls.”

The disarray was especially jarring to Simple customers, who had become accustomed to the Portland banker’s highly personalized and customer service, which sought to differentiate Simple from larger banks by being especially responsive.

“Can you please give us a timeline on when you will unlock all our accounts?” one client wrote on Twitter Monday morning. “You say to call but you don’t answer. We need access to our accounts today.”

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