Search Results
Journal Article
Digital Currency, Digital Payments, and the 'Last Mile' to the Unbanked
Digital forms of payment are either not accessible or highly costly for unbanked consumers. This is because these forms of payment must be "funded" by some source of money, such as cash or a bank account. That creates the "last-mile" problem for the unbanked. This article examines various solutions for the funding problem that have been proposed in the literature, by regulators, and in bills submitted to Congress.
Discussion Paper
The ‘Banking Desert’ Mirage
Unbanked households are often imagined to live in urban neighborhoods devoid of banks, but is that really the case? Our map of U.S. banking deserts reveals that most are not in urban areas, where financial exclusion may be endemic, but in actual deserts?largely in the sparsely populated, rural West. Across states, we find that the share of the population in a banking desert is unrelated to the share that is unbanked. If distance from a bank is not what causes financial exclusion, then motivating banks to locate closer to the unbanked may not promote financial inclusion.
Working Paper
Low-Income Consumers and Payment Choice
Low-income consumers are not only constrained with spending, but also with the type and variety of payment methods available to them. Using a representative sample of the U.S. adult population, this paper analyzes the low possession (adoption) of credit and debit cards among low-income consumers who are also unbanked. Using a random utility model, I estimate the potential welfare gains associated with policy options suggested in the literature to provide subsidized and unsubsidized debit cards to this consumer population.
Journal Article
Unbanked in America: A Review of the Literature
We review the recent literature on the causes and consequences of financial exclusion—that is, the lack of bank account ownership—in the United States. We examine existing work in a range of fields, including economics, finance, public policy, and sociology.
Journal Article
Payment Card Adoption and Payment Choice
Using data from the 2021 Diary of Consumer Payment Choice, this article investigates two questions: how do consumers without credit or debit cards make payments, and do consumers without these payment cards differ from other consumers?
Journal Article
Financial Services for Lower-Income Communities
Report
2018 Survey of Consumer Payment Choice
In 2018, U.S. consumers made 72 payments per month on average, not a significant change from 2017.As in 2017, the most frequently used payment instruments were debit cards (34 percent of alltransactions), cash (24 percent), and credit cards (23 percent). Over the 11 years of the survey, debit,cash, and credit have consistently been the most popular ways to pay. For the first time in 2018, debitcards replaced cash as the payment instrument used most frequently for in-person purchases.Some key findings about medium-term trends from 2015 to 2018 include the following:• The share of consumers ...
Report
Who Pays the Price? Overdraft Fee Ceilings and the Unbanked
Would capping overdraft fees increase financial inclusion? Studying an event in which caps were relaxed, we find banks raised overdraft fees but also expanded overdraft coverage and deposit supply, leading more low-income households to open accounts. While inattentive depositors may not benefit from being banked, the rise in account ownership persists, suggesting newly banked households valued their account even after learning about its costs. We find no evidence that being banked weakens households’ broader credit health, including delinquency, indebtedness, and credit scores. We conclude ...