A big part of why I love my job is because we are trying to provide the underbanked mass market with greater financial freedom. It’s great to provide lower cost payments, the ability to build credit, better credit decision tools, greater transparency and convenience. But the holy grail, really, is…
Keeping up with the Kards
My most recent post on FastCompany re: prepaid accounts, not proudly invoking the Kardashians.
Check Your Financial Health
Our portfolio company, GoalSpring Financial, has been working on the big idea of encapsulating your financial health in a small, digestible package for a while. Most people are now familiar with what their credit score is – if not due to the credit crunch of the past couple years, then…
Kimberly Gartner on PiggyMojo: “Turning Impulse Buying into Impulse Saving”
CFSI’s fabled Kimberly Gartner has honored me by guest contributing this post: Recently, I have become smitten by an online/mobile service that is designed to help couples save money together for their savings goal. Since I’m convinced that 2011 is going to be the year of underbanked savings, I asked…
ConsumerFinance.gov
Just posted some comments at FastCompany.com on CFPB’s new online presence. If you’re interested, click here.
Involuntarily Unbanked
On the last day of last year, the St. Louis Fed banked published a fascinating and somewhat bizarre report, titled “A System Dynamics Approach to Understanding the Use of Banks and Alternative Financial Services in St. Louis.” Drawing on their apparently famed complex systems capabilities, the report breaks down into smaller pieces how and why…
The Power of Rent
Since my first post on Experian’s acquisition of CFSI’s portfolio company, RentBureau, more great news has hit, not just in a press release, but the Baltimore Sun and others have run stories: As PRBC’s Michael Nathans envisioned, the founders of RentBureau then built and now Experian and VantageScore are realizing,…
Financial Bliss
Saw a little “infographic” in the Banker today, under the heading “Ignorance is Bliss,” produced by Javelin Research. CFSI’s Rachel Schneider quickly absolved me of the notion that it’s surprising people are paying less attention to their finances. “Who wants to track bad news?” I guess so, however, I would…
Lose the Card and Get an Account
Sandra Block’s article in USA Today last week was yet another page in the large volume of “beware of prepaid” stories published in the last year or so. It’s a familiar motif, “working class Peter got a prepaid card only to discover he was getting feed to death.” The five…
New Type of Stimulus
If you follow these things, you’ve probably heard about the Treasury’s new (if uncompellingly named) MyAccountCard pilot. Issued by soon-to-be Green Dot’s Bonneville Bank, managed by Green Dot, the US Treasury will send these GPR cards to 600,000 underbanked households, suggesting they use the card to receive their tax refunds.…