SAN FRANCISCO — I’ve got to hand it to Josh Reich at Simple. Simple has responded to more than 20,000 emails — one at a time. No automated bull****. Josh said at Bank Innovation 2012 that he personally has corresponded with more than 3,000 consumers, many during “email parties” at Simple, where pizza and beer mix with mass email correspondence campaigns with every Simple employee.

It’s an admirable accomplishment. It exemplifies, in its own way, how wildly overmatched are startups as compared to the large banks. I had many takeaways from Bank Innovation, but this one — that banks own vast, potentially insurmountable resources — was the most notable.

Todd Sandler, Head of Product Strategy & Deposits, ING Direct, described at Bank Innovation how ING employs about 2,500 people, and all of them “are responsible for innovation.” Now that might be something of an exaggeration, but the general notion that ING has more resources than Simple, which has a couple of dozen staffers, and other startups is absolutely not hyperbole.

Banks’ resounding depth of resources were on display in other ways. Wells Fargo & Co. executives described how the bank first tests its innovation products and services — and there are many of them floating around at any given time at Wells — on its own employees. The implication of that is: a) it can afford to be in constant development on a multitude of products; and b) Wells has a lot of employees. The big banks have People Power. A lot of it.

Look, I don’t want this to be construed as a knock against Josh and the other startups, many of which were at Bank Innovation 2012. The startups are wildly impressive. ZestCash, for example, deserves to be watched keenly. Inspire Pay, as well. Simple, obviously, has a management team, including Josh, of admirable dedication and purpose. Jeff Stephens at Tribed is someone with real vision. But this is an uphill fight, to revolutionize banking with relatively limited resources, and the banking innovation industry should be honest about that.