Banks and credit unions can and should be doing much more to support consumer credit building – and, importantly, they can do so in ways that align their own success with the success of their customers.

Every year, millions of American consumers use small-dollar credit (SDC) products for quick access to cash.

Increasingly, underserved Americans are turning to prepaid cards to meet their basic financial services needs.

The products and services that cater to the needs of financially underserved consumers are big business.

More than 600 participants gathered at the Sixth Annual Underbanked Financial Services Forum to discuss the future of the marketplace for the underbanked.

Millions of underbanked Americans have found prepaid cards an effective way to meet their basic financial services needs.

The financial crisis and economic downturn have reshaped the financial services landscape.

The need for new ideas to improve Americans’ financial capability has been evident throughout the recent recession.

In 2010, the Financial Health Network launched its largest effort yet to catalog all existing financial products and services aimed at the underbanked population: the Underbanked Industry Scan.

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.

As this year’s Forum made clear, the underbanked financial services industry is in a period of progress.

Almost one-third of the 30 million U.S. households who are unbanked or underbanked borrow to pay for small-dollar, short-term needs.