Monday 12 August 2013

More People Becoming Unbanked

By Cornelius Nunev


A small section of the population has no bank or transaction accounts of any sort. They're called the unbanked, and they rely seriously on cash dealings and option financial providers to make their way in the globe. There are also more of them yearly, according to a recent FDIC survey.

Unbanked millions

A number of people assume that a banking account is a necessary thing to have to live in the country. Still, that is not entirely true since there really are many people who do all their business in cash. These people get paid and cash and use it for all their purchases.

In some cases, it's because an individual has an almost military like discipline in staying away from the financial system. Given the misbehavior, to say the least, of the American financial system, there is a very easy to understand rationale to that idea.

About 10 million people fall into this class, called "unbanked," and the group is growing, according to CNN.

Recent FDIC study

In 2009, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation released a study concerning the number of the unbanked and also the under-banked, meaning people who used financial institutions other than banks such as check cashers and payday advance lenders.

About 9 million people, or 7.7 percent of households in the country, did not have bank accounts. There was an enormous increase to when the survey was updated in 2011 to 8.2 percent of the country, which consists of 10 million households or 17 million adults, according to Businessweek.

About 88.5 percent of people in the country have a checking account while 69.2 percent have a savings account, according to Fox Business. A lot of people use other providers to have their accounts though.

Differing reasons

According to CNN, approximately 33 percent of respondents in the FDIC's survey of the unbanked reported not having enough money on a regular basis to maintain a bank account. A further 21 percent reported neither wanting nor needing a bank account; 7.7 percent reported not wanting to deal with banks and 5.4 percent reported that minimum balances were too high or that charges were too costly, or both.

About 6.4 percent of people said that they had too many overdraft charges and got their account closed while 6.6 percent said they had a negative history with banks or did not have identification to open an account.

Of the unbanked, 12 percent used pawn shops, cash lenders or personal loan companies during the last 30 days before the survey and 59 percent had used them during the last year, according to Fox Business. About 18 percent of respondents used prepaid cards for cash. Option financial services seem to be what the unbanked used.




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