The much-anticipated launch of the first truly virtual consumer bank is fast approaching. How do we know? From its tweets, of course (see inset).

Customers who joined the wait list in 2010 are being told publically that they will receive invites “before spring is over.” Others are being told “early summer,” “mid-to-late summer,” “early fall” and “fall.”  Based on those responses, it looks the company plans to work through its entire 100,000 wait list within the next 6 months.

A critical piece of the grand opening is pushing the Simple mobile app past the gatekeepers at Apple. That happened last week (9 May). Within 48 hours, the app had already jumped to 13th-most-popular in the finance section, despite the fact that no one but a few early testers could actually use it. Today, it’s fallen back to 53rd in the rankings.

In terms of how it works, all we can do now is drool over the half-dozen screenshots published in the store and on the Simple website. We especially like how they’ve anchored the forward-looking “Safe-to-Spend” balance in the top-center of every page (see below). The app also includes remote check deposit, something the startup has talked about before.

We’ll look at it in much more detail once we get our Simple account, presumably in the next three to four weeks.

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Simple mobile banking app, v1.3.1 (14 May 2011)
Itemized transaction with                     Extra authentication code
Safe-to-Spend balance on top               for higher-value transfers