Originally Posted by rowan

The whole idea of Bitcoin is to stay away from centralized third parties.

Have a look at the history over the past few years, see how many online wallet providers and exchanges have been hacked (or sometimes, [air quotes] 'hacked'), or have quietly disappeared with customer funds.

At least banks usually have some form of government backing, and they're local. How much luck do you think you'll have trying to recover funds from a company in Luxembourg that one day just closes its doors?