Given that I’m the only person who reads this blog, I considered it a compliment that Roy and Bertrand Sosa asked me not to write about their new yogurt shop — erggg, I mean, their new financial services flagship for the underbanked — until it was official. I read about…
Doral, Dorsey and Deposits
For what it’s worth, today is the last day to get early-bird discount to CFSI’s annual shin-dig, the 5th Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum. Who cares? Anyone remotely interested in the underbanked marketplace should think twice about not attending. The conference attracts an incredibly broad range of people, from hedge…
Strategic Ventures
At a time when venture capital, as an asset class, is not generating the returns it promises over the long haul (who wants fixed income returns for venture level risk?), it’s important to reconsider its structure and forms of value. Our friend David Dove makes some excellent points in his…
Previously Banked
A factoid we’ve been telling people for years came to the fore in the recently launched and very nice site, http://www.economicinclusion.gov/. The FDIC is behind it, believe it or not.
Alternatives in Alternative Credit
My colleagues and I have long believed in the power of alternative credit data and analytics. These are the alternatives to the “traditional” credit data and analytics, purveyed by FICO, TransUnion, Experian and Equifax, which are the most basic tools mainstream lenders use to assess whether you or I are…
How the red dot became a Green Dot
Green Dot, the leading general purpose reloadable (GPR) prepaid card program manager, is making the logical step in narrowing its supply chain. Especially with big retail clients like Wal-Mart, Green Dot must experience relatively thin margins. For the relatively uninitiated, GPR suffers from many hands at the trough: an issuing…
What’s the Sweet Spot for Green Dot?
Last week our friends at Green Dot finally filed for an IPO. This is exciting news in a recessionary environment, but especially for a company which has seen significant growth during this recession. Green Dot’s revenues have roughly doubled every year since 2007, as did their operating income. The JP…
Do be Square
The initial hype associated with Jack Dorsey’s Square appears to have waned. I’d like to add my 2c about how I think it can be game changing for the underbanked: to power millions of micro-merchants, to create wealth, to create an ecosystem of payments and credit services. An iPhone cost…
Just-in-time learning
When I explain my day-job, quite a few people believe that the way to solve the underbanked “problem” is through financial education. Many banks think the same way. They are right, of course. But it’s not so simple as just teaching “these people” how basic financial services work (never…
Will Obama help the underbanked?
The Obama administration certainly has the industry under fire: banks are likely to lose 70% or more of the fees they currently make from overdraft fees. Sunday, Citibank settled with New York AG Cuomo to keep a million low-end checking accounts open and free for a year at an approximate…