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.

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.

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.

Although underbanked consumers in the U.S. often have insufficient access to financial services, their access to mobile phones is fairly widespread.

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.

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

Mainstream financial institutions have struggled to meet the needs of low-income families living paycheck to paycheck.

There are few affordable short-term, small-dollar credit products in the marketplace that meet borrowers’ immediate needs and that help put them on a path toward financial prosperity.

An estimated 30 to 40 million American households are financially underserved. They lack access to the financial products and services that enable them to save, build assets, and achieve financial prosperity.

Low-wage immigrants are a particularly hard-to-reach segment of the underbanked population.