This Wall Street Journal article looks at the Bank On movement and the growing availability of low cost, low fee transactional Bank On certified accounts as a means for helping financial institutions reach the unbanked.

Knowing the size of the unbanked and underbanked population is helpful in understanding the needs of your local community. Learning which populations are at higher risk for being financially underserved can also help you design an effective and well-targeted financial access strategy.

Users can access Prosperity Now’s (formerly CFED’s) data tool to download estimates of the number of unbanked and underbanked households at the city/town, county, metro area and state levels; access supplementary demographic data on at-risk populations; map unbanked and underbanked households down to the neighborhood level; and learn more about the financially underserved in your community.

The CFE Fund’s Bank On National Account Standards provide local programs with a benchmark for account partnerships with financial institutions, and include both core and recommended features.

The CFE Fund announces that 60 banks and credit unions with over 28,000 branches now offer accounts meeting Bank On National Account Standards, newly updated for 2021- 2022. These low cost, no-overdraft, no-surprise-fee bank and credit union accounts have been highlighted by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and other federal agencies in connecting people to claiming or depositing their Economic Impact (stimulus) and other emergency payments, and were recently embraced by the American Bankers Association, which publicly urged all its members to offer a Bank On certified product to their customers.

The CFE Fund, in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Bank On Data pilot collected and measured quantitative data on 2017 Bank On certified account usage at four pilot financial institutions with certified accounts: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. The pilot reveals the kinds of relevant account data that can be collected, how it might be collected, and what it might show; as well, this pilot highlights the benefits of a central reporting system for financial institutions with Bank On certified accounts and for their coalition partners across the country.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sponsors the biennial National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households to collect data on the number of U.S. households that are unbanked and underbanked, their demographic characteristics, and their reasons for being unbanked and underbanked. The survey includes a wealth of previously unavailable data on unbanked and underbanked households at the national, state, and large metropolitan statistical area (MSA) levels. Users can access survey findings, download survey data, generate custom tables, and view information about other relevant FDIC studies and initiatives.

This CFE Fund and National Consumer Law Center report details consumer reporting agencies and the significant—and deeply flawed—role they play denying millions of people access to mainstream banking.