Unbanking of America

What Hacker News says

1. toomuchtodoJan 2024
   Also recommend "The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives" by Lisa Servon on the topic.

   https://www.npr.org/2017/01/10/509126878/what-is-driving-the...

   https://mitpressbookstore.mit.edu/book/9781328745705

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2. calderwoodraSep 2023
   I'll also add that it's great they're able to exist, as a large portion of their customers are actually banned from traditional banks. A great resource/read for learning about the "unbanked" is "The Unbanking of America".
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3. calderwoodraSep 2022
   the Unbanking of America - the author does a deep dive and recounts first hand experiences of lower income Americans dealing with banks. I would say this is required reading for anyone interested in Fintech/neobanks that target the lower income segment
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4. awillenOct 2021
   The stereotype of check cashing places as loan-shark-esque is generally wrong - I recommend reading The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon to get a real understanding of the industry.

   For a poor person, a check-cashing place is generally the cheapest and most straightforward way to cash checks (and receive other basic financial services) with clear, reasonable pricing. If you're poor, acquiring the same services from a bank is not only vastly more expensive, it's also much less transparent in terms of how and when fees will be assessed.

   Often this confusion stems from people who aren't that familiar thinking they're the same as payday loan places, which are just legal loan sharks and designed to trap people in an endless cycle of debt.

   None of this is anything against postal banking, which I'm hugely supportive of.

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5. awillenOct 2021
   I replied to another comment further down but will say it here again - the stereotype of check cashing as a predatory industry is wrong, and it comes largely from people who have never used a check cashing service and conflate it with payday lending, which is a totally different (and extremely predatory) service.

   For most poor people, checking cashing businesses are both cheaper and more transparent than any other way of getting their checks cashed. This has been studied - they would pay more (and in much less transparent fashion via a series of fees) if they went to actual banks.

   I recommend reading The Unbanking of America by Lisa Servon to get a real understanding of the industry.

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6. massysettNov 2021
   I've read many a book (recently, "The Unbanking of America," which was recommended by another commenter on HN, or "Veils of Distortion") where the author did not have nearly enough material for a book, but perhaps had enough material for a New Yorker article. So think of the New Yorker as saving the world from material that would have been even longer if it were in a book.
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