Amex’ visionary Dan Schulman is marshaling that giant to embrace financial inclusion in very real ways, not just a philanthropic or PR side show. On the PR side, though, they have partnered with the guys behind Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman (Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media), to create a short…
The Savings and FinCap Map
And last but not least in our industry maps of companies serving the Emerging Middle Class, is the Savings and Financial Capability Map (preceded by the Payments Map and the Credit Map). This is the smallest in terms of generating revenues – only $8.9billion in fees – and contains the…
The Credit Map
Following the Payments Map of companies serving the Emerging Middle Class, here’s The Credit Map. A handy dandy guide for seeing how all the pieces fit together and a decent sample of who are the movers and shakers. These companies were key in generating $71 billion in consumer revenues in…
The Payment Map
Last week, CFSI and Core published the 2012 market sizing report for companies serving the Emerging Middle Class. $89B across five categories of products during 2012. In an effort to make the landscape more concrete, our venture associate, Victoria Cheng, helped create several industry maps. Here’s the first one: The…
Underbanked Hot? How’s a cool $89billion?
Four years ago I tried to size the underbanked market. We knew it was lots of people, but weren’t sure if they are “underbanked” because they’re unbankable. Do they make bank? (Answer: hell yes). We have since partnered with CFSI, and now with Morgan Stanley, to formalize and serialize this…
Five Subprime Auto Finance Predictions for 2018
This is the third installment on why I think subprime auto lending is about to transform radically. I just returned from an enlightening trip to the Auto Finance Summit in Las Vegas. Over the past five years, payday lending has evolved from a marketplace dominated by old-school lenders into one…
Auto Lending is the New Payday Lending – and That’s a Good Thing
In my last post, I made the case that the financial product no one talks about – auto finance – is actually the single largest spend category in financial services for the un- and underbanked. (Read it) Today’s subprime customers can pay as much as 10 times more to get…
Subprime Auto Finance: Hidden Giant
No one who reads my blog will be surprised to learn that 1 in 4 Americans are underbanked. But I do see quite a few raised digital eyebrows when I point out that these 80 million consumers spend almost $80 billion on fees and interest for the most basic of…
Zero Emission, Collaborative Financial Services
What can a zero emission, entirely crowd-navigated road trip teach us about the future of financial services? Friday, I went on a limb and took a road trip of exactly equal length to my electric car’s battery capacity – 200 miles – to meet with one of our investors. I…
Susu Sudio: Shared Savings
Finding new ways to spend money you do and don’t have makes up the two largest segments in consumer finance: payments and credit, respectively. Finding new ways to save money – for a large purchase, a rainy day – is a barren landscape. Of course, saving is like flossing your…