Financial Solutions Lab: Creating Next-Gen Tools To Advance FinHealth
The Financial Solutions Lab ushered in a new era of fintech solutions to tackle persistent gaps in consumer financial health.
Financial Solutions Lab: Innovating To Improve Financial Health
Over its nearly 10-year tenure, this cross-sector initiative spurred a new generation of solutions that positively influenced the lives of millions.
FSL Explore
Explore all content from the Financial Solutions Lab.
FSL Collaborative
The Collaborative explores how innovations in policy can complement private and nonprofit financial health solutions to drive change at scale.
FSL Exchange
When fintechs and nonprofits work together, they can offer a powerful combination of well-designed tech solutions and supportive relationships with trusted partners to improve financial health.
Financial Solutions Lab
The Financial Solutions Lab (FSL) was established in 2014 to cultivate, support, and scale innovative ideas that help improve financial health. The initiative focused on solutions to address persistent financial health challenges faced by individuals with low to moderate incomes, Black and Latine communities, and other underserved consumers.
FSL Accelerator
The Accelerator works directly with entrepreneurs to support our mission of identifying, developing, and scaling fintech solutions for low- to moderate-income individuals, Black and Latine communities, and other underserved consumers.
Thank you for Registering for Bridging the Gap: Innovative Solutions for Financial Relief
Improving Benefits Access: Insights from the Financial Solutions Lab Exchange
Learn how three nonprofit-fintech partnerships developed solutions to improve the benefits application process, support renters, and help child care providers.
Propel: Helping Families Make the Most of Their Government Benefits
Find out how a fintech innovator partnered with the Financial Health Network to transform the public benefits experience for millions of users.
Finli: Using Fintech To Support Black-Owned Businesses
Learn how fintech Finli partnered with the Financial Health Network to help Black business owners rebuild and recover from the pandemic.
Summer: Helping Borrowers Secure Student Loan Forgiveness
Learn how fintech Summer partnered with the Financial Health Network to help students pay down debt and build their financial health.
ONE@Work: Helping Workers Bridge the Income Gap Between Paydays
Learn how fintech Even, now ONE@Work, partnered with the Financial Health Network to help more people access their wages right when they need them.
Leveraging Nonprofit-Fintech Partnerships To Improve the Financial Health of Child Care Providers
Hear 2022 Financial Solutions Lab Exchange grantees discuss how they’re helping providers streamline the subsidy billing process and improve their financial health.
Credit Building in the Digital Age
Innovations in fintech are creating new opportunities – and posing new risks – for consumers with invisible, unscorable, or subprime credit.
Thank you for Registering for Closing Benefits Gaps: Incorporating Benefits Screening Into Financial Coaching
Closing Benefits Gaps: Incorporating Benefits Screening Into Financial Coaching
Hear from Financial Solutions Lab 2022 Exchange grantee partners about their work to embed tech-enabled benefits screening into financial coaching sessions.
The Benefits Cliff Dilemma: Navigating Wage Increases and Public Benefits
Interviews with home care workers reveal how even well-intentioned raises can lead to benefits cliffs that cause workers to lose out on public benefits – putting them in a worse financial position overall.
Thank you for Registering for Renter Financial Health and Financial Shock-Absorbers
Renter Financial Health and Financial Shock-Absorbers
Join 2022 Financial Solutions Lab Exchange grantee Flagstone Initiative as they discuss how early intervention can support renters’ financial health.
Supporting Returning Citizens’ Financial Health
Drawing on insights from recent pilot projects, this brief discusses ways in which stakeholders across sectors can empower people coming out of prison to access identification and financial services.
Entrepreneur Focus: Jennifer Tescher
Two events — a financial crisis followed by a global pandemic — demonstrated to Jennifer Tescher just how vulnerable the majority of Americans are.
Workplace Financial Health Innovation: Exploring the Spectrum of Financial Guidance Solutions for Your Employees
Employees across industries are managing a wide range of financial health needs, and they are increasingly looking to their employer for support. As employers consider which financial guidance benefits to offer, they must consider a range of factors – including the makeup of their workforce, how the guidance is delivered, and cost structures – in order to identify the most high-impact solutions for their employees.
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Through Tech, Community, and Empowerment
Join 2022 FSL Accelerator cohort member Stackwell Capital for a discussion of how finhealth stakeholders can empower Black communities to build meaningful wealth that shrinks the racial wealth gap.
Nonprofits and Fintechs Improving Benefits Access: Our 2022 Exchange Grantees
The Financial Solutions Lab has awarded grants to three partnerships that make up our 2022 Exchange cohort. The nonprofit and fintech organizations in the cohort will work to promote financial health by improving access to benefits and measuring the impact of their projects on the consumers they serve.
Connecting Returning Citizens with ID and Bank Accounts: Lessons for Policymakers and Practitioners
How Digital Communities Can Drive Financial Decision-making and Customer Satisfaction
In collaboration with legal empowerment fintech Upsolve, we explore how incorporating a digital community into fintech tools can support user financial decision-making and improve customer satisfaction.
Navigating the True Costs of Auto Insurance for Low-income Americans
Financial Solutions Lab alums Propel and Sigo Seguros discussed providing affordable and accessible auto insurance to the Spanish-speaking market. Between higher purchase prices and the fluctuating cost of gas, auto ownership and maintenance is stretching the budgets of many households across the country. And that's before you consider the fact that a disproportionate number of drivers from immigrant and low-income communities are rated as "high risk" policyholders and pay above average insurance costs.
Workplace Financial Health Innovation: Rolling Out Credit- and Debt-Related Benefits for Your Employees
As many employees struggle with unmanageable debt, employers can make a difference by providing credit- and debt-related financial wellness solutions. Here are fiscal, legal, and regulatory considerations for businesses to keep in mind as they develop offerings to help employees manage debt, build credit, and improve their financial health.
Building Consumer Savings with Fintech Innovations
Savings are a critical component of financial health, and new approaches can encourage consumer savings.
Financial Solutions Lab Announces 2022 Accelerator Cohort
The Financial Solutions Lab, an initiative launched and managed by the Financial Health Network in collaboration with founding partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. and with support from Prudential Financial, today announced that it has selected six organizations for its 2022 Accelerator program which is focused on financial benefits and tools.
Financial Solutions Lab selects six for 2022 cohort
The Financial Solutions Lab, an initiative launched and managed by the Financial Health Network in collaboration with founding partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. and with support from Prudential Financial, today announced that it has selected six organizations for its 2022 Accelerator program which is focused on financial benefits and tools.
Financial Solutions Lab Announces 2022 Accelerator Cohort Focused on Access and Removing Systemic Barriers to Financial Benefits & Tools for Underserved Consumers
Selected companies focus on streamlining low- to moderate-income, Black, and Latinx individuals’ navigation and use of benefits and tools in support of better financial health.
Improving Benefits Systems With Nonprofit-Fintech Partnerships: 2022 Exchange Challenge
The 2022 Exchange Challenge focuses on nonprofit-fintech partnerships that can advance financial health for people navigating benefits systems.
Workplace Financial Health Innovation: Rolling Out an Earned Wage Access Program for Your Employees
Employers, benefits platforms, regulators, and employees are paying more attention to earned wage access (EWA) products for their potential to improve employee financial health. Employers can maximize the positive outcomes of EWA products by minimizing associated fees, explaining the program mechanics to employees, and providing a complementary suite of financial resources.
Better Together: Meeting the Needs of Consumers of Color Through Partnerships
Change Machine and NALCAB share some key takeaways for nonprofit practitioners and fintech providers who are committed to reducing the digital divide.
ID Access for Returning Citizens: Learnings from the Field
Access to mainstream financial services, like a bank account, is critical to financial health and provides people with a safe way to store money, transact, pay bills, and build savings. But, being “banked” remains a financial health challenge for many. In 2019, according to the FDIC, more than 5% of U.S. households – 7 million […]
Meeting the Needs of Consumers of Color With Fintech
How can innovation better serve consumers of color? Join us to understand how fintech tools and trusted community institutions can support the financial health of consumers of color and young people.
Have fintechs cracked the financial inclusion code?
Financial Health Network President and CEO, Jennifer Tescher, joins on Bankshot podcast at the Money 20/20 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Financial Solutions Lab Launches Eighth Accelerator Challenge Seeking Fintech Companies Addressing Racial Wealth Gap and Financial Health of LMI Communities
The Accelerator seeks applications from financial technology companies focused on helping low- to moderate-income (LMI) and Black and Latinx communities expand access to benefits and financial tools that help them to maintain key safety nets and improve their financial health.
The newest fintech bank account is for the formerly incarcerated
If you were to look at fintech apps at random, you’d quickly spot ones that help you collect your paycheck earlier, settle up IOUs and invest your money. If you spent a little more time digging, you might uncover banking apps designed for immigrants, Black Americans and the LGBTQ community. What you likely wouldn’t notice are products built for the formerly incarcerated. Until recently.
A New Alabama Law Brings Opportunities, Challenges for Reentering Citizens
For the nearly 600,000 Americans who return to their communities from incarceration each year, reestablishing financial stability and access to safe financial products is key to improving financial health. For many returning citizens, lack of ID can limit employment and housing opportunities. There are several reasons returning citizens may leave incarceration without ID: They may […]
Increasing the Financial Health & Employment Opportunities of Returning Citizens
To help lower barriers to financial health and improve employment outcomes for returning citizens, the Financial Solutions Lab has awarded grants to five nonprofit and fintech partnerships working across the United States as part of our 2021 Exchange cohort.
Fintech and vulnerability
Fintech is having an enormous impact on the financial affairs of some of the most vulnerable in society.
2021 Finovate Award Winners Unveiled
Today we’re busting out the virtual confetti to announce the winners of the 2021 Finovate Awards, recognizing excellence in fintech across 25 different categories. This is the third annual Finovate Awards competition, which aims to highlight strong work done by the companies who are driving fintech innovation forward and the individuals who are bringing new ideas to life.
Designing for Whom? Lessons from a Coordinated Relief Effort to Reach Student Loan Borrowers Most in Need
In this article, we explore how FSL supported two interventions to identify and reach the most vulnerable student loan borrowers during the height of the pandemic.
FinHealth Spend Report Reveals Opportunities for Fintechs and Other Financial Health Stakeholders
The high spending on interest and fees revealed in the FinHealth Spend Report highlights the importance of connecting more consumers with affordable products and services. A clear market need exists for financial health-enabling products and services, and FSL is proud to work with fintechs addressing that need.
The Case for Diversity in Innovation
Fintech plays an important role in helping to democratize access to finance, making it imperative that more fintech solutions target the underserved and those who are not financially healthy.
Startups for Good
Interview with Hannah Calhoon, vice president of Innovation at the Financial Health Network.