The Unbanked
Hi Steemians
You probably hear this term from time to time and if your like me, you wonder, what it means and how big a problem it is. Well let’s address the first point first.
Unbanked
In the USA, the FDIC or Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation regulates and audits banks.
They define the unbanked or underbanked, as people that might have access to a checking account, but have to rely on other kinds of services like pawn shops, check-cashing and payday loan companies to get cash and credit,”
How big is the problem
A survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) found that 7% of households (9 million) in the US are unbanked and an additional 19.9% of households (24.5 million) are underbanked. Several counties in the state of Georgia are among the worst affected areas.
According to reports from the FDIC over the past five years, Atlanta, Georgia is in the top ten of most unbanked cities in the country, and more than one in ten households have no involvement with traditional banks. Around 30% of residents are underbanked, meaning they might have to check accounts, but have to rely on other kinds of services like pawn shops, check-cashing and payday loan companies to get cash and credit,” Clark said.
Interesting Coincidence?
The state of Georgia now has a total of 101 bitcoin ATM kiosks, making it the third largest US market for bitcoin ATMs behind the cities of Chicago and New York.
Interesting Question
I wonder if some off these people are unbanked by choice?
I wonder if they learned not to trust banks, so they are using non traditional financial institutions like cryptocurrency?
I doubt that this state has this large number of Bitcoin ATMs by chance.
More information about the FDIC Study
2017 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households
The FDIC is committed to expanding Americans’ access to safe, secure, and affordable banking services. The FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households is done to assess the inclusiveness of the banking system, and in partial response to a statutory mandate, the FDIC has conducted the survey biennially since 2009.1 The most recent survey was administered in June 2017 in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau, collecting responses from more than 35,000 households.
Estimates from the 2017 survey indicate that 6.5 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2017. This proportion represents approximately 8.4 million households. An additional 18.7 percent of U.S. households (24.2 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system.
References:
- https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/
- https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017execsumm.pdf
- https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2017/2017report.pdf
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