By Nancy Castillo This Spring, Financial Health Networker Nancy Castillo spent 12 weeks at Oportun’s headquarters in Redwood City, CA. Castillo was there as part of a Fellowship program offered by Financial Health Network to its staff, the goal of which was twofold: to provide professional development and exposure to an emerging Financial Health Network…

By Financial Health Network Consulting Putting Low-Income Consumers First With the Help of Financial Health Network’s Knowledge More than 68 million low-income Americans don’t get the financial services they need. It’s this market gap that prompted the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a network of community development financial institutions to turn to the Center for Financial…

By Toni Husbands, Debt Free Divas As a mother of two very young children, staying healthy is a priority because I want to remain active with them as we all grow older. Helping my children develop healthy lifestyle habits is important so hopefully one day they can pass that on to my grandchildren. I didn’t…

By Ryan Guida, CashMoneyLife We all have financial goals in our lives. Mine have changed through the years, but I can still remember the big ones. Paying off all consumer debt. Getting married. Buying a home. Becoming a father. These were all huge financial milestones. But perhaps the biggest financial leap of faith I ever…

In July our colleagues at Fifth Third Bank shared several examples of how Financial Health Network has affected that organization’s thinking. “We printed out the image of small-dollar credit consumers, taping it by our desks to remind us every day about the people we were doing our work for.” Thank you, Tom, Mark, and Darren,…

By Financial Health Network Consulting A Financial Inclusion Forum Goes Further Nothing makes the consumer experience resonate more than living it first-hand. The Financial Health Network understands this, which is why it created the Consumer Financial Experience (FinX) to offer an in-the-field opportunity that puts participants in consumers’ shoes and has them tackle the challenges…

By Grayson Bell, Debt Roundup Did you know 57% of Americans are struggling financially? Isn’t that a crazy number? What if I pull out percentages and go with about 138 million people. Yes that is MILLION! This information is according to Center for Financial Services Innovation’s Consumer Financial Health Study. While I hate to see…

By Nick True, True Tightwad So, I have a confession to make. I ruined my honeymoon. This is hard to admit since most people don’t know this (not even my mom, who’s reading this for the first time). It’s hard because this story has the potential to paint me in an extremely negative light. But…

The following is a transcript from Jennifer Tescher’s Big Idea at the EMERGE 2016 Forum in New Orleans. I don’t know about you, but as a frequent flyer, those announcements when you get on the airplane about “put on your seatbelt”, or “no smoking in the lavatory”, those just sort of wash over me at…

By Financial Health Network Consulting From Check Cashing to Credit-Building Nix Neighborhood Lending has come a long way since it opened fifty years ago as a check cashing business inside a Los Angeles grocery store. In 2007, after the company was bought by Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Nix began shifting its business away from simply…

By Abigail Perry, I Pick Up Pennies FinCon and Center for Financial Services Innovation partnered up for a contest to have bloggers explain what financial health means to them. Here’s my take on the subject. Most people think of financial health as a state of being. To me, it’s about a conscious journey toward stability….

How a rejection letter and a plate of red velvet cupcakes led me to understanding how #FinHealthMatters. By Betsy Mikel Thank you for your interest in Northwestern University. After careful consideration of your application, I am sorry to inform you we are unable to offer you a place in the class of 2008.* The 18-year-old me…

By Elizabeth Vivirito, Managing Director, Financial Health Network This month we’re introducing a series called “Moments of Impact.” At Financial Health Network we work hard to design our events, content, and experiences with impact at the center of our work. While we have seen notable strides from our members and in the marketplace, we recognize…

What financial providers need to know about young adults. What if we reached young people at the moment they’re primed to to absorb financial education — a moment like their first paycheck? What if we used that moment to capture people’s attention, and we allow them to open that account to help get started? MyPath, a San…

By Mel Bondar, brokeGIRLrich I am the world’s laziest runner. I kind of hate it. Sometimes it’s my legs that hate it. Sometimes it’s my lungs. Most of the time though, it’s my mind. My mind really hates running. My mind wants to be at home binge watching Pretty Little Liars and eating chocolate chip…

In case you missed it, June 29 was the first-ever #FinHealthMatters Day. You might be wondering what that’s all about, maybe even why you should care. In a nutshell, it’s this: 57% of Americans — approximately 138 million adults — are struggling financially. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. The struggling majority aren’t who you think: While it’s…

Building products that help consumers improve their financial health is hard. Finance is complex, the space is regulated, and consumers tend to be reserved about sharing their financial information, limiting viral loop options. So why would anyone try to build a product in this space instead of another food delivery app? Here are five reasons […]

By Thea Garon, Senior Manager, Financial Health Network Financial Health Network is pleased to announce the launch of the Financial Health Beta Project, an initiative designed to help providers measure and improve their customers’ financial health. From June to December 2016, participating companies will use Financial Health Network’s 8 financial health indicators to measure and…

By Rachel Schneider Senior Vice President, Financial Health Network Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its long-awaited proposed rules about payday lending. The CFPB is to be applauded for wading into the near-impossible task of trying to regulate this controversial product without causing harm to the millions of people who rely on…

By Sohrab Kohli, Senior Associate, Financial Health Network Thursday in Kansas City, Missouri, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be issuing a proposed rule on payday loans and other small-dollar loan products. This rule will likely introduce protections that would curb consumer harm and have other broad implications for much of the small-dollar credit…

Three Things Innovators Should Know About Prepaid Millions of Americans–whether they have bank accounts or not–depend on prepaid cards to take more control over their financial lives in a way that cannot easily be done with cash alone. High-quality prepaid products are a critical component to the financial health of those who use them to […]

By Sarah Parker, Director, Financial Health Network Originally published on Financial Health Network’s website on February 2, 2016 The better a financial services provider understands its customers, the better it can serve them. With Big Data, providers can increase customer loyalty and gain market share by better serving its customers. Big Data here is defined…

Financial Solutions Lab sat down with Jean Claude Rodriguez-Ferrera, Co-Founder of Puddle, one of Financial Solutions Lab’s 9 winners, to talk about FinTech and Finhealth. What made you start your company? There’s nothing more powerful than a community that trusts you. I discovered this some years ago by working with different communities who shared money […]

By Josh Sledge, Director, Financial Health Network This blog originally appeared on Nextbillion.net on November 11, 2015. When we traditionally think of the industries that can help promote successful outcomes for children, the financial services industry doesn’t generally make the list. However, financial service providers can actually play an important and constructive role in children’s…

While digital platforms make it easier to reach a larger number of consumers, it doesn’t always mean those consumers will choose your product or even continue to use it once they do. Gavin Michael, Head of Digital for Chase, offers the best practices that have helped his team transform the way they interact with their […]

Guest blogger: Eldar Shafir, Co-Founder of ideas42, Princeton University Professor, and Advisory Council Member for the Financial Solutions Lab Like many of us, I’m lucky enough to be able to manage my daily life while devoting just a sliver of my mind to looking after my personal finances. But for lower-income American households, navigating continuously […]