Online banker Simple, one of Portland’s most prominent technology companies of the past decade, is shutting down as part of its parent bank’s own sales process.
Simple notified employees on Wednesday of the impending shutdown and told customers Thursday, calling it a “ strategic decision. ” Simply put, it told customers it will transfer their accounts to BBVA, but there is no timetable for the change.
In November, BBVA announced that it would sell its US operations to PNC Financial Services Group for $ 11.6 billion.
“We are focused on the things that make the most sense for the future of the company, whether on a standalone basis or possibly combined with PNC,” BBVA said in a written statement Thursday. BBVA also shuts down two other financial technology services it owns, Azlo and Open Platform.
Founded in 2009, Simple moved from Brooklyn to Portland two years later, amid a resurgence of Oregon technology entrepreneurship. It was immediately one of the city’s most prominent technology companies, promising a consumer-friendly, free approach to online banking.
Simple sold to Spanish banker BBVA in 2014 for $ 117 million and has never found its base under new ownership. The company struggled to compete as larger banks used many of the useful online banking features Simple helped pioneer.
The company hesitated when it tried to resolve a central tension about whether it was a bank or a technology company in the first place. Simple fired 10% of its staff in 2017 and replaced almost all of its managerial staff. Nine months later, founder CEO Josh Reich stepped down.
“I suspect PNC is prioritizing their existing online banking technology,” Reich tweeted Thursday. “I am saddened by the closure, but happy with the journey and lasting change Simple has undergone in the global banking world. Customer experience is important. Great teams are important. “
Simple is one of Portland’s largest tech employers. According to BBVA, the current workforce numbers 220 people, 80% of whom are in the northwest.
BBVA did not disclose details of Simple’s disbandment or the fate of its Southeast Portland office, on the east side of the Hawthorne Bridge.
“There are still many details to be addressed as part of the entity’s winding down,” BBVA said in Thursday’s statement. “As we work on regulatory approval and integration plans, our longer-term human resources needs will become more apparent.”
Simple embodied both the ambitions and the disappointments of the Portland tech community in the years following the Great Recession. Leveraging mobile technology, social networking, and cloud computing, Simple was one of a new generation of hopeful Oregon startups that ended Silicon Forest’s historic reliance on hardware production.
Others of that generation included Jive Software, Urban Airship (now Airship), Elemental Technologies, Puppet, Jama Software, Janrain, and Act-On Software. They collectively raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and hired thousands of people.
They have all been through their own setbacks and none of them grew into a really big company. Some are still running – Puppet says it hopes to go public this year – while others are sold to larger tech companies that continue to operate in Portland.
Since the 1990s, no major new technology company has sprung up in Oregon, and the old ones are steadily disappearing. The $ 8 billion sale of Wilsonville-based Flir Systems, announced Monday, leaves just two publicly traded technology companies in Oregon.
Simple’s dedicated customer service and a dedication to helping its clients save money rather than spend it set it apart from larger, more established banks and earned a dedicated following among clients.
On Thursday, there was a torrent of disappointment from some of those customers online.
– Mike Rogoway | [email protected] | twitter: @rogoway | 503-294-7699