Millions of people in the United States lack bank accounts, relying instead on predatory pay-day loan stores and check-cashing shops for their financial needs. Conventional wisdom has been that it’s an issue of access–banks don’t invest in low-income neighborhoods, therefore low-income people don’t have access to banks.
New York City’s Office of Financial Empowerment is disproving that thesis, with an innovative program, profiled by writing fellow Tim Fernholz in The American Prospect, that makes “plain vanilla” savings accounts available to people with poor credit histories, and then follows through with financial counseling.
Source: The American Prospect
