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> Posted by Shaheen Hasan, Manager, FI2020 at CFI
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) has been leading the charge in the U.S. to move beyond traditional financial education toward models that help consumers translate financial knowledge into better financial behavior in their everyday lives. CFI interviewed Josh Sledge of CFSI to understand the trends shaping capability-building efforts in the United States.
What are signs that a financial capability framework is gaining traction in the United States?
CFSI works with a vast and diverse network that includes banks, credit unions, non-profits, financial technology companies, government agencies, and academics. Over the past several years, we’ve seen a shift in focus and approach among these various groups of stakeholders that reflects adoption of the financial capability framework. In other words, organizations and companies are increasingly placing an emphasis on helping consumers achieve real and meaningful financial behavior change.
Nonprofits and philanthropic organizations are pushing themselves to create deeper impact and experimenting with new strategies to do so. A wave of recent start-ups is employing technology to give users new products and tools for saving and managing money. Innovative banks are creating budgeting tools, introducing refined messaging, and forming partnerships to help customers better manage their money. We’ve been encouraged to see these developments as they demonstrate that the financial capability framework is taking hold. However, there is still plenty of room to go further.
Where is momentum stalling?
Scaling effective strategies for building financial capability has certainly been a challenge. We’re seeing new high-potential strategies emerge and practitioners and researchers taking a focused approach toward evaluating programs and products for their impact on financial behavior. Taken together, we’re poised to see the emergence of innovative but proven models for improving financial capability. This is a tremendous development, but the next step is implementing these models at scale in order to reach the millions of households that are struggling to manage their finances.
> Posted by Eric Zuehlke, Web and Communications Director, CFI
#470129381 / gettyimages.com
“I took today off because the stress is too high. I was going to borrow $200 from a friend and it fell through. I truly need it. I want to cry and can’t. I need it before the month is out. I had it and lent it to my family and I’m catching hell getting it back.”
— Tammy, age 60, U.S. Financial Diaries participant
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. supplemental poverty rate is 15.5 percent, meaning that 48.7 million Americans live below the poverty line.¹ While poorer households face higher difficulties to make ends meet, households across the lower and middle-income spectrum in the U.S. struggle with income volatility, unplanned expenses, and finding ways to save and invest. But they also use creative ways to manage their budgets and money.
> Posted by Allyse McGrath, Senior Associate, FI2020, CFI
Once in a while, we in the Accion D.C. office gather in our state-of-the-art movie theater (a.k.a. conference room) for some collective viewing. Now that the World Cup has ended, this viewing has a lot less to do with fútbol and more to do with our day jobs. Last Friday’s feature was a recently-released documentary that highlights those who are left behind by the U.S. financial system. Spent: Looking For Change follows four households who represent the quarter of American households that are underserved and held back by the current financial system.
The film focuses on how families with precarious financial and economic lives end up using services like check cashers, title loans, and payday loans – the tools that those without bank accounts or with poor credit must rely on in the absence of affordable and accessible financial services. In one example, a former nurse and single mother had to stop working to care for an incapacitated family member. She turned to title loans to pay the bills and when she couldn’t keep up the loan repayments, the title company repossessed her car. Another family, which took out one $450 payday loan, is now stuck in a cycle of high interest rates and hidden fees because the family’s income is not high enough to pay off the debt altogether. Each narrative helps us understand why, in 2012, underserved Americans spent an estimated $89 billion on interest and fees.
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