Access to Financial Services

In order to build and keep financial assets, people need access to safe, affordable, and culturally appropriate financial services and products in their communities. Insight Center is working to increase the availability, affordability, and appropriateness of financial services in low-income communities by researching and partnering with credit unions - whose historical mission and enabling legislation have been to serve “people of modest means.” Focusing on credit unions that already are (or may be) interested in expanding their reach in low-income areas, Insight Center has two strategies: 

  • To identify best practices, appropriate incentives, and challenges for large credit unions to expand their financial services to low-income individuals
  • To build the capacity of small, community-development credit unions already targeting low-income communities to expand their menu of products and services 

In partnership with the Ford Foundation, Insight Center researched how the philanthropic community can best support the expansion of large credit unions in low-income communities. The report, "Helping Credit Unions Serve Low-Income Communities," included an analysis of appropriate “carrots” and “sticks” to stimulate large, community-chartered credit unions to enhance their products and services in low-income areas. 

To build the capacity of small credit unions already targeting low-income communities, Insight Center is partnering with community-based collaboratives and community-development credit unions. We help these small credit unions to identify the necessary resources and to model their financial capacity to expand services and product offerings for low-income residents, including alternatives to payday loans. To increase the presence of credit unions in more low-income areas, we are also helping to connect large credit unions (which have greater capacity but less expertise in marketing to low-income residents) with smaller credit unions (which have smaller capacity but more expertise in serving low-income residents).

The goal of our credit union partnerships is to increase the presence of affordable and appropriate financial services and products in low-income communities and to decrease the use of income-stripping financial products and services, such as payday loans and check-cashing outlets.