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…
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…
Is Remote Deposit Capture the Killer App for Mobile?
I’ve been poo-pooing mobile payments for the underbanked for quite a while, much to the chagrin of everyone who believes in technology or has half a brain. And of course, it all does look so good: underbanked people, globally, actually own mobile phones, actually use them, and the phone could…
Treasury Seeks Access
The assistant secretary of the US Treasury, Michael Barr, gave a talk last week at the annual CFED conference and has echoed these comments in other places as well. He was talking about the underbanked. I was happy to see that most of his speech was about access. Too many…
Is ACE the New ADP?
Jennifer Tescher’s column in the American Banker today (sorry, you need a subscription to read it…) reminded me, a) how pleased I am to be associated with her and CFSI, and b) of a theory that I’ve had for a while: that Ace Cash Express is starting to look more…
Wabi Sabi, Wesabe
One of the Personal Financial Management (PFM) favorites, Wesabe, is shutting its doors. CEO Marc Hedlund wrote a doleful note to his users today. Understandably in denial of shuttering his business, he euphemistically referred to the “discontinuing the Account Tab,” instead. After five years and $4.7 million, all raised in…
Remit This
Entrepreneurs have tried to disintermediate the $300 billion-or so that immigrants send back home every year for quite some time. Western Union and MoneyGram dominate the business and charge a lot. Should be easy to cut out the middleman, right? Wrong, although some new models are making a dent. Card…
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…