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Getting a Handle on America's Underbanked

January 9, 2013 By Patti Murphy According to the 2011 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households on in 12 American households, representing at least 51 million adults, is underbanked....

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Senators Blast Bank Payday Loans

January 10, 2013 by Patti Murphy. A group of ranking Democratic Senators - led by Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal - this week urged federal bank regulators to crack down on banks that offer loan...

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How Well are Banks at Reaching Financially Underserved?

January 11, 2013 by Patti MurphyAnyone who still wonders why there are so many unbanked and underbanked in America here's the Number 1 reason: only 4 in 10 U.S. banks design products that address the...

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Payroll Cards Gain with Rising Tide of Unbanked & Underbanked

March 1, 2013 by Patti Murphy Payroll cards have been available for decades, but the market is really taking off now, with employers expected to load nearly $69 billion on to the cards in 2017, up from...

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Banking Giants Back Efforts to Boost Financial Inclusion

March 3, 2013 By Patti Murphy Banking giant Citicorp and Visa Inc., the card network, are backing the micro-lender Accion in a worldwide effort to accelerate financial inclusion. Financial Inclusion...

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Pressure Mounts on Payday Lenders

To the growing list of adversaries of payday lenders add JPMorgan Chase. The mega-bank this week announced a series of moves intended to make it tougher for payday and other short-term lenders to...

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Feds Want Tighter Money Laundering Rules for Prepaid Debit Cards

Prepaid card are a great stand-in for cash. Annual payroll card loads alone are expected to reach $68.9 billion by 2017, according to a new report from Aite Group. That’s more than twice the total...

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Mobility Can Help Bank Underdserved, Sometimes

Mobile banking and payments are a growing part of the commercial landscape. Also a popular and cost-effective way to mainstream the financially underserved. Especially here in the U.S.According to the...

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Regulators Eye Bank Payday Lending

The nation's lead bank regulators want banks to think twice before they get involved with payday lending. Supervisory "guidance" proposed this week by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency...

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Understanding the Underbanked

Atlanta-based FactorTrust is partnering with FICO, the credit scoring folks, to produce a new quarterly report on underbanked Americans  in hopes that it will lead to more and better credit decisions...

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Tech Companies Find Greenfield Opps In Underserved Markets

May 18, 2013There is a common perception that unbanked and underbanked consumers (collectively, the "financially underserved")are poor. This may be the case in some countries (notably those in the...

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Changing Names Reflect New Market Dynamics

June 13, 2013Last week the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) announced it was changing the name of its flagship event, the Underbanked Financial Services Forum. The new name - Emerge: the...

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Employers Face Blowback Over Payroll Cards

Reloadable prepaid debit cards are becoming bank accounts for a new generation of consumers. These consumers are younger, tech-savvy, and they want anytime, anyplace access to their accounts. They are...

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Underbanked Trifecta: Strivers, Millennials & the Debanked

When I began this blog, in 2009, the notion that nearly a fifth of American households had little to no interaction with federally insured financial institutions wasn't much of a conversation starter....

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Blow Back Over Payroll Cards Reaches Washington

The blow back over payroll cards just became heftier. An influential group of U.S. Senators wants federal investigations into fees and practices associated with these reloadable prepaid debit cards...

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International Remittances: New Models Offer Some Growth

International remittances between consumers is a large and growing market. New branchless models are contributing to the growth, but not overwhelmingly. According to a new report by CGAP (the...

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Crackdown on Payday Lenders that Skirt Restrictions

Saturday, August 10, 2013Payday lenders have operated below the radar for years. Not anymore. These days at least 7 state and federal agencies are scrutinizing payday lenders, especially those making...

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Going Mainstream: Underbanked are Becoming Alternatively Banked

Wednesday, September 11, 2013There's a movement afoot to deep-six labels like "unbanked" and "underbanked" in favor of a more inclusive moniker, like alternatively banked. It's easy to see why: hardly...

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Fighting Global Poverty through More Inclusive Payment Systems

Can electronic payment systems be adapted to improve access to financial services in the developing world? A new report from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says Yes, and that it can be done in...

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State, Federal Crackdowns Targetting Online Payday Lenders Intensify

State and federal regulators are turning up the heat on companies making payday loans online and claiming they are immune from laws against such loans because they are operated by Native American...

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USPS Seeks Financial Lifeline Serving the Underbanked

Postal bank services truckHere's a conversation the time for which has come: allow the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) to offer financial services. It's not a novel idea. After all, USPS already sells...

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Federal Watchdog Finds Fault with Payday Lenders

As if there were any doubt before, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reports that the payday lending business is fraught with problems. A document released last week discussing supervisory...

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