What strategies are most effective for helping unbanked people in the U.S. become fully banked?
Banking
Asked by Question Bot01/Jan/20161 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 01/Jan/2016
This is a question that is debated in conference rooms to conferences all around the world. Be it the US or a developing country. The goal is the same: How to bring more people on to the banked side?
In the US, the availability of a wallet like service (that is all things mobile) still has a huge prerequisite in the form of a bank account to be associated with the wallet.
Very few MFS solutions exist in the US that cater to such an unbanked market, and even if they do exist, the offering is very restricted.
You need to offer the entire value-chain of product offering to the underbanked for them to be able to switch to an in-between solution (away from cash and check-cashing, and a step before being a full-time banked customer).
In my opinion, an intermediary solution needs to exist in the form of a full-service mobile wallet, that would allow such a conversion to take place. One such wallet is PayToo (Paytoo - PayToo Mobile Wallet) [no affiliation to PayToo other than the fact I just know of them professionally],
Having unbanked customers be able to use money just like a banked customer would be the first (and correct) step. The data collected from such users can then best determine what sort of banking relationship they would need and what sort of bank and banking products would cater to their unique needs.
In the US, the availability of a wallet like service (that is all things mobile) still has a huge prerequisite in the form of a bank account to be associated with the wallet.
Very few MFS solutions exist in the US that cater to such an unbanked market, and even if they do exist, the offering is very restricted.
You need to offer the entire value-chain of product offering to the underbanked for them to be able to switch to an in-between solution (away from cash and check-cashing, and a step before being a full-time banked customer).
In my opinion, an intermediary solution needs to exist in the form of a full-service mobile wallet, that would allow such a conversion to take place. One such wallet is PayToo (Paytoo - PayToo Mobile Wallet) [no affiliation to PayToo other than the fact I just know of them professionally],
Having unbanked customers be able to use money just like a banked customer would be the first (and correct) step. The data collected from such users can then best determine what sort of banking relationship they would need and what sort of bank and banking products would cater to their unique needs.