Building Simple with Founder Shamir Karkal

Today, I’m talking to fintech pioneer, Shamir Karkal, the Founder and CEO of Simple.  

Founded in 2009, Simple was one of the very first neobanks, meaning they offered banking services, but were not themselves a bank.  Simple built the user experience and tech, but partnered with a bank to provide the charter.

In 2009, it was not at all obvious this was even possible. Simple helped prove it was and grew a cult-like customer base in the 100s of thousands.  

It’s hard to overstate how important the neobank model has become for fintech in the decade plus.  Today, there are 100+ Neobanks and 20+ banking as a service platforms.  But the bank-as-a-service model, is not just a story of neobanks.  

It’s been crucial to the growth of fintech, especially embedded fintech, more broadly.  

So, today, we’re going to talk w/ Shamir about what it took build Simple and pioneer a category.

But, like any good pioneer, Shamir’s not finished.  Today, he’s founded Sila, a banking-as-a-service platform, informed from his time building Simple.  We’ll talk cover that as well as what Shamir see’s in the future of financial infrastructure.