By Jennifer Tescher, CEO of Financial Health Network Whether they yet realize it or not, banks and other financial services companies are in the financial health business. That means they are in business to help their customers develop a strong day-to-day financial system that makes them resilient in the face of challenges and enables them…

By Financial Health Network Hamed Shahbazi is the Founder and CEO of Tio Networks, a multi-channel payment solution provider specializing in bill payment services and other financial services through a variety of automated self-serve, retail point-of-sale, mobile and web-based methodologies processing approximately 50M transactions worth roughly $6 billion in payments annually in the United States….

By Julie Rains This article is inspired by Financial Health Matters Day (#FinHealthMatters). This article may contain affiliate links; there’s a possibility I could earn income when you click through one of these links and sign up for an account, make a purchase, etc. This article is written for entertainment purposes only and should not…

Everyone should have a friend they can turn to when they need someone to spot them a little cash. At least Jason Wilk thinks so, which is why he and his cofounders John Wolanin and Paras Chitrakar teamed up to build their fintech startup, Dave. Wilk is no stranger to the startup world, and Dave, […]

By Amy Blacklock Consumer debt and I had a thing. We started out on friendly terms. Early in our hookup, the fondness grew between us. Things got ugly a few years in. You see, I kept believing I could handle the love affair. I probably could have, except I became too dependent on the relationship….

By Sarah Parker, Director and Insurance Working Group Lead, Financial Health Network Navigating the hype cycle of the insurtech boom can be a challenge for any financial services veteran. To help us sort it out, I sat down with Wayne Allen, the COO of Insurance Thought Leadership. As an attorney, Wayne has advised entrepreneurs and…

Instead of relying on 401(k)s or employer pensions, which are quickly becoming extinct, Matt Carey has set out to build a new way for people to plan for retirement. His startup, Blueprint Income, is busy digitizing and creating a virtual option for folks to set up and manage their retirement funds securely. Carey spoke with […]

By Andrew Wang, Runnymede Capital Management We all “get” physical health. There are 15 gyms within a 2-mile radius of my house. Even the bag of corn chips on my desk is trying to convince me that it’s healthy — natural, organic, non-GMO. But we know better. We know that we need to exercise regularly and should…

Eddie Lim had already sold one successful business to a global financial company and was getting ready to start a new venture when he realized he’d hit a major roadblock. Lim found himself getting rejected over and over by big banks when he tried to refinance his home. Surely he wasn’t the only one facing […]

By Natalia Joaquin, Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners #FinHealthMatters to Latino Families Like Mine On this #FinHealthMatters Day, I don’t need this astonishing recent report to understand that white households have six times the wealth of Latino families, or that white wealth is growing 20% faster than for Latinos. I saw it for myself when I was…

By Dr. Barbara O’Neill In 1999, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. After 10 months of treatment, my doctor described my physical health status as NED, which is doctor-speak for No Evidence of Disease. The same acronym can be applied to financial health: No Evidence of Distress. Financially healthy people with financial well-being are comfortable…

By Femme Frugality A lot of times when we write about money, we pretend that our income will look like this: But just as the aging process doesn’t always go the way we want it to, studies show that for most American families, income doesn’t go up in a straight line at a 40 degree…

Financial fraud is a massive issue when it comes to money management for senior citizens. More than one in four victims of financial fraud in the U.S. are over the age of 60, according to FTC data. But for the longest time, not much has been done to help prevent this theft from happening. When […]

By Theresa Schmall, Financial Health Network June 27, 2017 was the second annual #FinHealthMatters Day. On this day more than 900 individuals created nearly 10 million Twitter impressions explaining why financial health matters. This message is particularly important because 57% of Americans — approximately 138 million adults — are struggling financially. At Financial Health Network, we see the struggle…

By Thea Garon, Financial Health Network As the healthcare debate rages on in America, it’s not often that we stop to consider the successes of our nation’s healthcare system. But as financial service providers respond to the disruptive force of technology and the changing nature of consumer demands, they would be wise to consider how…

An EMERGE Conference Interview with Brian Costello By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Brian Costello is the Chief Information Security Officer at Envestnet. Brian is helping Envestnet | Yodlee create a more financially informed generation and ultimately a stronger global economy by supporting the consumers’ right to access financial solutions that allow them to improve…

By Rachel Schneider, Financial Health Network When Jonathan Morduch and I started working with the families associated with the US Financial Diaries research — featured in our recently released book, The Financial Diaries — we thought it might be hard to get people to share the intimate details of their financial lives with us. After all, how many of…

We are excited to announce the eight organizations just named to the 2017 class of the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) at the Financial Health Network with founding partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. These organizations represent the most promising group of early-stage financial technology innovators that are improving Americans’ financial health. The Financial Solutions Lab winners […]

Tom Brown is a partner at Paul Hastings LLP and a deeply experienced fintech attorney who works closely with the Financial Health Network and all of our Financial Solutions Lab companies. He graciously took a few minutes to discuss the regulatory and legal framework in which founders of these businesses need to operate, providing an […]

By Brenton Peck, Financial Health Network “Dear Employer, I need help.” I’ve been taking small steps to get ahead — picking up a few extra hours at work, saving diligently in my bank account, and working to rebuild my credit score. But this month, my son had an ER visit, which I thought was covered under his father’s…

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Keynote Speaker Nandita Bakhshi Read about “Culture at the Core” session at the EMERGE Consumer Financial Health Forum. Learn More and Register Today >> Nandita Bakhshi is President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of the West and co-CEO of BNP Paribas USA Inc. She is responsible for the strategic…

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker Lynnette Khalfani-Cox By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Lynnette Khalfani-Cox We sat down with Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, New York Times best-selling author and CEO/Co-Founder of AskTheMoneyCoach.com, for a candid conversation about why providers should know their customers’ unique financial stories, what works to inspire consumers to act, and the importance…

By Rachel Schneider, Financial Health Network At the dawn of the industrial revolution, manufacturing jobs were terrible jobs. Conditions were dangerous; hours were far, far too long. But over time, the nature of the work changed. Whether the changes were the result of unionization, regulation or just good business, what history reminds us is that…

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker Brett King By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Brett King We sat down with Brett King, futurist, innovator, radio host, founder of a neo-bank, to hear how he’s thinking about the future — and what the threats and opportunities are to banks, credit unions, and technology companies. You sit in a…

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker David Hoke By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Read about “From the Corner Office to the Cubicle: Financial Health at Work,” session at the EMERGE Consumer Financial Health Forum. Learn More and Register Today >> David Hoke is Sr. Director of Health & Well-Being at Walmart. What is it — exactly — that…

By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network For years, the global and United States financial inclusion communities have worked in parallel, employing slightly different strategies and metrics of success in their aim to build markets that include all people — especially the most vulnerable. More recently the global financial inclusion sector has been focusing on both education about…

By Shannon Austin, Financial Health Network When you think of Google, you’re probably thinking search. Synonymous with how we call tissues by the brand name “Kleenex,” the phrase “Google it” is, of course, how we all associate finding things. In that way, “Googling it” has taken the place of many practices the over-40 set grew…

By Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO, Financial Health Network When I launched the Financial Health Network nearly 13 years ago, no one knew who we were, and virtually no one knew what it meant to be underbanked. All I knew was that I was supposed to figure out how technological changes in financial services could…

The financial technology sector is huge and growing–in 2016, $12.7 billion was invested in fintech according to CB Insights. Whether they are disruptors of the traditional banking system, working with robo-advisors to help consumers invest smarter easier, or making credit-building easier, many new startups are focused on young, technically-literate millennials, who are now the largest […]

By Aliza Gutman, Financial Health Network There’s no arguing that fintech has tremendous potential as a delivery channel for high-quality products and services to help consumers improve their financial health. Yet many fintech tools are still not designed with the needs of underserved consumers in mind. In our just-published brief, we share what we learned…

By Rachel Schneider & Jennifer Tescher, Financial Health Network Sometimes, complex problems demand simple solutions. According to Financial Health Network’s research, 57% of Americans are financially unhealthy. The Pew Charitable Trust found that over 70% of Americans are income limited, savings constrained or debt challenged, and a third of Americans experience two or even three…

By Financial Health Network Underserved Consumers spent $141 billion in 2015 to borrow, spend, save, and plan their financial lives. What products do they use to meet their needs, and where are the opportunities for innovation? American consumers have never had more choices when it comes to financial products. But having choices doesn’t always mean…

As highlighted in UNC’s recent evaluation of the Financial Solutions Lab, one of the key differentiators of the Financial Solutions Lab from other accelerators, incubators, and investment activities is our commitment to improving consumer financial health. Success for us goes beyond helping an organization raise its next round of capital. What matters most is being […]

By Tyler Griffin, Financial Health Network This post is a follow-on to our recently released FinLab Snapshot, a report in which we identified industry insights, trends and analyses based on FinLab’s 356 applicants in 2016. In this post, we’ll share more about something we called out as one of the “trends on the horizon” we…

By Katherine J. Flocken Financial Health Startups Win Their Way to Money20/20 As autumn arrives, financial services innovators know it is almost time for Money20/20 — one of the largest conferences for payments and financial services innovation in the world. It is a major event for those in, or trying to break into, the financial services industry….

By Asad Ramzanali & Josh Sledge, Financial Health Network This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most of you reading this post, but it is worth stating: Fintech has a diversity problem. Specific numbers for diversity in fintech are hard to nail down. But we do know that both technology and finance have a significant…

This post is a follow-on to our recently released Financial Solutions Lab Snapshot, a report in which we identified industry insights, trends, and analyses based on Financial Solutions Lab’s 356 applicants in 2016. In this post, we’ll share more of our funding related applicant data and call out what we think these data imply. As we […]

By Tyler Griffin I think one of the most interesting tensions in our world of fintech exists between building a product that our customers love and building a product that is good for our customers. Much ink has been spilled about the tension between building a successful business and doing good; that is well trod…

By Aja McClahanan I’m a child of the 80s and came of age in the 90s. If you don’t know much about that time period, I’ll sum it up for you: the rise pop culture consumerism. Rappers, ball players and other larger-than-life personalities defined success for us in terms of the “bling.” The more diamond-encrusted…

By Steven M. Hughes LET’S REWIND. I’m a freshman in college, hungry for food and new experiences as I’m walking across the library bridge. From one end to the other are tables filled with coupons for free pizza, subs and credit cards (one of these things are not like the others). Shortly after all the…

By Stephanie Jones Have you ever avoided going to the doctor about an ache or pain simply because you were afraid of what the diagnosis might be? That happens with finances too. In fact, that was totally me three years ago. While my husband was in law school, I knew our debt was mounting, but…

By Bobbi Dempsey Growing up in severe poverty, smart financial skills aren’t something you learn. I say that from personal experience. Survival is the main goal, and you do anything necessary just to get your hands on enough food to make it through the day. You have a very negative view of — and relationship with — money, as…

What does financial health mean to me? If only I were presented with that question eighteen years ago when I was a young man entering the United States Army, maybe I wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes I have made in the area of my finances.

By Joshua Sledge, Director, Financial Health Network After a relaxing Labor Day weekend, I settled back into work last Tuesday morning by scanning for industry news. Everywhere I looked — my Twitter feed, the company Slack channel, Google News — I kept seeing the same article pop up with a thought-provoking headline: “Sex ed is required. Why isn’t financial…

By Tai Stewart Ever since I can remember, my dad was always the financial manager in our household. He knew how to support 8 kids and a wife on less than $40,000, and we didn’t lack any basic necessities. As the eldest child, I was the recipient of most of the financial lessons since I…

How to Value the True Cost of a Loan How should we measure the true value of a loan on consumers’ lives? Lower blood pressure, for the anxiety and stress saved? The dollar amount of an additional payday, because someone could afford to repair the car and get to work? The quality of life achieved…

By Amanda K. Lettmann Disability comes quickly and very unexpectedly. One moment you are healthy, another moment you are having open heart surgery — at least that’s what happened to me. In the early 1990’s, I learned dearly the importance of having sound financial health. At the time I was 29, an avid runner, cyclist, and fitness…

All children are “our” children. Financial shocks affect millions of children’s lives. Over 48 million children live in financially struggling households; 38% of these families don’t have savings habits. Financial Health Network has been dedicated to raising awareness around America’s children, publishing research to support the efforts. And this summer, we invited Bob Putnam, author…

By Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Specialist, CFI This morning I had the luxury of splitting an Uber with my girlfriend for our to-work transportation. Neither she nor I are affluent by United States standards, but I would say we’re relatively financially healthy. Most months, our expenses like rent, food, medical bills, and student loans are low…

By Eric Patrick, BlackMarketExchange Spring 2011. That’s when I graduated from Howard University’s pharmacy school. I felt like I hit the lotto. No more waiting on refund checks, which at the time felt like a million dollars. I was now going to be a licensed pharmacist with a paycheck that was sure to prevent me…