True, but we all have such a sour taste from our experience with all banks that we are rightly a little squeamish to the concept.

I think the subconscious reaction is "yeah right, trust another banker?"

This got me:

"...designing the complete consumer banking experience, via the web and your smartphone.."

I am not sure how good this will be, I mean, credit unions were supposed to be the answer to big banks issues - but they are largely aggregating under umbrella ownership as well. Their overdraft fees are a large percentage of their revenue (mine for example advertises the $500K per month they take in in overdraft fees as a primary asset directly on the wall in front of the tellers (Valley Credit Union))

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What people really need is fundamental help with managing their spending and finances.

Though the following is overly complex, for illustration imagine the following:

You bring home $10K per month. You allocate a particular budget online.

But you have certain cards for certain classifications which are allotted a % of your spending budget after certain bills are accounted for (rent, utils, ins, legal req's (child support/tuition, etc).

These cards can only be used for the intended purpose. You'd have a "Food card", "Car card", "Entertainment card" etc...

The types of cards, their budget % and what not could be based off understanding you spending needs, habits and goals dependent on your history and other factors that you've already been measuring through the use of Mint. And manually set based on your own preferences.

The "food card" works at any grocery, restaurant, cafe, etc (based on the establishments profile ID in Mint, as an example) -- but will not work at Kragen, the gas station, etc..

This system could be used to teach people to allocate funds to a bucket - and ideally prevent them from over spending.

(Sure, there will be plenty of people on HN who will say "PSHAW! only an idiot would need to have such granular control over their spending - look at me, I don't spend beyond my means, blah blah blah" -- but there are literally HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of people who DO -- thus all the financial issues that people have, and the preying on such people that many financial institutions, rent-to-own etc type establishments that exist.

There really is a deep need for material hand-holding in financial issues in the world. Hand-holding to a degree that some people don't want or need, but many many others do.

If the system could have a measurable view; such as it requires that you select a >5% savings number that is not as easily accessed (e.g. like transferring from your savings to checking whimsically) and that gives you a constant and real-time view of your credit rating, payment standing and history on credit-based accounts etc...

With incentive offerings to provide a bit of gamification to the entire service "Pay your X bill on time for N months and get Y months free Z service", automatically - without the user required to do anything.

Rewards on brand loyalty simply built into their purchases, integrated group coupons for the users of the financial training instruments etc...

There is a serious and deep need for a pivot of the entire financial industry that differs from the centuries old taking that the industry is known for, and there is a universe of room for innovation in this area....