The Need is There: Secured Credit Cards as a Credit-Building Tool
By Laura Cummings, Director, Financial Health Network Amazon’s new Credit Builder secured card has ignited debate and dialogue about access to credit and the role secured cards can play in helping or harming consumers. We often hear about the millions of Americans who are deep in credit card debt, which points to the downside of…
Retronovation #3: Installments to Tame Credit Card Debt
Installment loans’ appeal, in comparison to credit cards, are the fixed terms — a year or two or three — and equal payment amounts that automatically commit a borrower to paying off the debt.
Bringing Underbanked Consumers Out of the Shadows
In this guest blog post, Josh Sledge and Equifax describe characteristics of underbanked and unbanked consumers and how financial institutions can better serve them. Josh tells us, “There’s a real market opportunity for providers to help underserved consumers build savings and credit to increase their resilience to financial shocks.”
Winning the Long Game: Reimagining Credit to Build Consumer Financial Health
Financially underserved consumers spend $173 billion annually to manage their day-to-day financial lives — including $97 billion on short-term credit products. How can lending solutions build brand loyalty that grows with borrowers’ financial health? To learn more about credit and the underserved market opportunity, download Financial Health Network’s 2017 Financially Underserved Market Size Study. This fall, the…
That Moment You Measure What Matters
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…
Strengthening Ties with Communities
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…
Four Things you Need to Know about Payday and Small-Dollar Lending
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…