2019 Financially Underserved Market Size Study
Discover opportunities to develop innovative, high-quality solutions to improve financial health for financially underserved consumers in the United States.
Cross-Sector Solutions: A Guide to Nonprofit-Fintech Partnerships
Learn best practices and real-life success stories from the Financial Health Network’s Nonprofit-Fintech Exchange, a marketplace for exploring collaboration and sharing insights on building high-impact partnerships.
A Guide to Measuring Small Business Financial Health
In this guide, we include nine indicators of small business financial health with two measurement methods (survey data or observed data), as well as corresponding survey questions and suggested data points.
Financial Health Network Extends Reach to Workplace Sector at EMERGE
Our research shows that employees are struggling financially and are looking to their employers for solutions. The EMERGE workshop represented a doubling-down on our commitment to working with employers, payroll and benefits providers, workers’ representatives, thought leaders, and policymakers to solve employees’ financial challenges.
Why Savings Interventions Are Important
As our research into measuring financial health shows, improving savings can unlock meaningful opportunities for people to improve their lives.
Scaling Innovative Solutions to Improve Financial Health: The Financial Solutions Lab
Despite a strong economy and low unemployment, the U.S. Financial Health Pulse shows more than half of Americans are struggling to pay their bills, save and remain financially stable. The problem is most acute for low-income individuals. Five years ago, the Financial Health Network launched the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) in partnership with JPMorgan Chase…
Case Study: Developing a Survey to Track Financial Health for Global Customers
Financial Health Network Consulting Services worked with Discover to explore options for creating a comprehensive employee financial health platform.
Driving College Success
Higher education can provide remarkable access and opportunity to Americans, but financial challenges often prevent students from reaching their full academic potential. Read about how educational institutions can help more students achieve academic success and financial health.
Redesigning the Financial Roadmap for the LMI 50+ Segment
Using data from the U.S. Financial Health Pulse, the Financial Health Network identifies five challenges for the LMI 50+ and opportunities for providers to support this fast-growing segment.
Webinar: Solving the Cash Crunch: Helping Small Businesses Access Check Funds Faster
Watch a presentation and discussion about the challenges that checks place on small business cash flow as small organizations wait for personal and business checks to clear.
Case Study: Designing an Employee Financial Health Management Platform
The Financial Health Network Consulting Services worked with Discover to explore options for creating a comprehensive employee financial health platform.
Comment Letter: Reforming the Community Reinvestment Act Regulatory Framework
The Center for Financial Services Innovation submitted these comments to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in response to the Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.
Measuring Financial Health Part 2: 6 Tips for Measuring Your Customers’ Financial Health
Here are six tips discussed in our recent webinar featuring innovative companies who have been using our FinHealth Score Toolkit to measure their customers' financial health.
Auto Insurance Spotlight
This brief takes a closer look at the auto insurance coverage, acquisition channels, knowledge, and claims experience of American consumers, with a particular focus on LMI consumers.
Case Study: Cultivating a Data-Driven Marketing Approach to Small Business Lending
The Financial Health Network Consulting Services worked with CRF to define, size, and categorize the underserved small business market, and provided insights for targeting them.
Preparing for Tomorrow by Fixing Today
In this report, the Financial Health Network looks at long-term savings and beyond to understand how day-to-day financial challenges of LMI pre-retirees and retirees are getting in the way of their long-term financial health.
Case Study: Meeting the Needs of Underserved Consumers: Designing a Financial Package
The Financial Health Network Consulting Services worked with Prepare + Prosper to take their FAIR (Financial Access in Reach) initiative from a concept to an effective pilot.
FinHealth Score® Toolkit
Explore the Toolkit now to start measuring and improving your customers’ financial health.
Redefining Student Success: Community Colleges and the Financial Health Journey
Actively supporting student financial health is a mission-critical investment for community colleges. This report provides a roadmap to help community colleges navigate that journey.
The Financial Health Network Comment Letter on Proposed Amendments to Rules Concerning Prepaid Accounts
The Financial Health Network submitted this letter in response to the request for comment on the proposed Amendments to Rules Concerning Prepaid Accounts, issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB, the Bureau) and published on June 29, 2017. Like the CFPB, we recognize the important role that prepaid products and services can play in the financial health of U.S. consumers and we are committed to promoting high-quality financial products. We believe that financial services can be a force for good in people’s lives and that meeting consumers’ needs responsibly is ultimately good for both the consumer and the provider.
Financial Health and Community College Students
Understanding the three prominent financial health challenges that community college students face and how those students can improve their financial health through choosing and using quality products and services.
Five Ways to Expand the Appeal of Your Financial Technology Product
Financial technology (“fintech”) has tremendous potential – as a delivery channel for high-quality products and services – to help consumers improve their financial health.
2016 Financially Underserved Market Size Study
The Financial Health Network and Core Innovation Capital present this 6th annual market analysis to illustrate the size of the opportunity to address the needs of financially underserved consumers and identify significant trends driving marketplace evolution and growth.
The Financial Health Network Comment Letter on Proposed Guidance for Third-Party Lending
The Financial Health Network is submitting this letter in response to the request for comments on the “Proposed Guidance for Third-Party Lending” issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and published on July 29, 2016.
Designing Breakthrough Solutions to Consumer Challenges
The Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) offers consulting services that guide organizations through each stage of offering new solutions, from development to ongoing measurement.
Financial Solutions Lab Snapshot: Innovations in Helping Consumers Weather Financial Shocks
Over the last year, more than 100 million American households experienced a financial shock. This year the Financial Solutions Lab’s second $3 million challenge was seeking solutions that could help Americans to weather such shocks.
Executive Summary: Eight Ways to Measure Financial Health
The Financial Health Network has developed eight indicators to measure financial health. We believe that these indicators establish a framework for shifting the financial services industry towards a focus on financial health, a focus on improving consumers’ lives.
Financial Solutions Lab – Helping Americans Weather Financial Shocks
The 2016 Challenge topic of the Financial Solutions Lab is Helping Americans Weather Financial Shocks. This issue brief introduces the topic, the reasons it is an important problem to solve, and some innovative approaches to doing so.
Competing on Financial Health: How Credit Unions can Win the Gen Y Market
Despite strong member satisfaction and negative consumer sentiment towards banks, credit unions’ market share of key profit drivers like mortgages and credit cards is in the single digits.
“VITA Credit Builder” by Mission Economic Development Agency
In 2010, Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) launched its Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Credit Builder program with the primary goal to establish or improve credit for low-income Latino immigrants and help them responsibly manage credit over the long term.
“Just Right” Small-Dollar Credit Products by Center for Community Self-Help
Center for Community Self-Help’s (Self-Help) “Just Right” line of small-dollar credit (SDC) products was designed to test features of SDC products offered to clients as affordable and safe credit options.
“Borrow Less Tomorrow” by Clarifi
Piggymojo built an online and mobile tool that uses goal visualization, social sharing and mobile technology to help savers turn impulse buys into “impulse saves.”
Consumer Financial Health Study Survey Instrument
The Survey Instrument is the full questionnaire that was fielded for the Consumer Financial Health Study, Understanding and Improving Consumer Financial Health in America.
The Financial Health Network Comment Letter on the CFPB’s Proposed Rules on Prepaid Cards
The Financial Health Network’s letter to the CFPB focuses on four main areas, each framed around what is best to achieve the overall goal of consumer financial protections that support financial health:
Pursuing Quality Innovation in the Prepaid Card Industry
Read case studies and discover recommendations for using prepaid cards to promote financial health by helping consumers spend, save, and manage their money.
Investment Activity in Fintech for the Financially Underserved
This report examines the significant volume of recent investment activity in the FinTech market for financially underserved consumers. This consumer finance segment is a dynamic and growing space.
Centris: Using Technology to Build Relationships
Centris Federal Credit Union believes serving underserved consumers doesn’t just make good business sense, but is integral to its heritage and mission.
Nexxo Provides Next-Generation Bank-in-a-Box
Nexxo Financial Corporation joined forces with Centris Federal Credit Union and Carver Federal Savings Bank to supply transaction kiosks to provide consumers more convenient access to the financial services they need.
Justine PETERSEN Case Study
This case study explores Justine PETERSEN. As a leader in microenterprise development and credit building, Justine PETERSEN emphasizes credit building as an empowering asset.
Improving Consumer Outcomes Through Better Disclosure for Prepaid Cards
Increasingly, underserved Americans are turning to prepaid cards to meet their basic financial services needs.
Infographic: Compass Principles
Discover the Compass Principles through this informative infographic.
The Financial Health Network Mobile InBrief
Although underbanked consumers in the U.S. often have insufficient access to financial services, their access to mobile phones is fairly widespread.
Making the Shift from Financial Education to Financial Capability
The need for new ideas to improve Americans’ financial capability has been evident throughout the recent recession.
Financial First Encounters: An Examination of the Fractured Financial Landscape Facing Youth Today
Young adults entering the work force and managing wages for the first time today face a financial services marketplace that is markedly more complex than the one their parents first encountered as young adults.
The Impact of Innovation – Self-Help Learning Brief
Mainstream financial institutions have struggled to meet the needs of low-income families living paycheck to paycheck.
Preferences and Usage of Financial Services Providers inBrief
This the Financial Health Network inBrief provides some insights on underbanked consumers’ preferences and usage regarding financial service providers. The information is drawn from the 2008 the Financial Health Network Underbanked Consumer Stud.
Highlights from the 3rd Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum
Gain insights from this third annual event, including the importance of building relationships, understanding the underbanked market, and increasing our conversations around saving.
Nonprofit Distribution of Prepaid Cards
Discover how three nonprofit organizations are marketing and distributing prepaid debit cards to provide their community members with economical and convenient financial services.
Highlights from the 2nd Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum
At this second annual event, attendees learned how to reach out to unbanked and underbanked consumers using various methods, including prepaid cards, remittances, credit scoring, and small-dollar loans.
Distributing Prepaid Cards Through Worker Centers: A Gateway to Asset Building for Low-Income Households
This research paper explores the mismatch between the consumer needs of low-wage immigrant unbanked and underbanked populations and existing financial products and vendor strategies.