One-third of NM residents without bank accounts
Submitted by maggieb on Tue, 01/12/2010 - 12:47pm.
New Mexico
From the New Mexico Business Weekly:
A new national survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. shows that New Mexico has one of the highest rates of unbanked and underbanked populations in the U.S.
The study, released Dec. 2, shows that a fourth of all U.S. households are either “unbanked,” meaning they have no bank account, or are “underbanked,” meaning they have a bank account, but rely on alternative financial services such as payday loans and check-cashing outlets to manage their finances.
In New Mexico, the study showed one of every three households is unbanked or underbanked. The state has the seventh-highest percentage nationwide of families with no bank accounts, and 10th-highest percentage of underbanked households.
That’s a serious problem, because most of those people pay more for basic financial services. They’re more vulnerable to loss or theft, and it’s harder for them to build credit histories and achieve financial security, said Andrew Gray, an FDIC spokesman in Washington, D.C.
“We want people to build wealth and move into the mainstream,” Gray said. “Many are being charged more for services that they could get through the banks. In addition, the banks offer regulatory security that is lacking with other types of money transaction services.”
For banks and credit unions, these populations represent a huge market that they’re missing at a time when the financial industry is struggling in the recession.
The survey breaks down the data on unbanked and underbanked households by income, race and ethnicity. That data shows that low-income and minority populations are particularly affected by a lack of financial services, with 54 percent of black households, 44.5 percent of American Indian/Alaska Native households and 43.3 percent of Hispanic households either unbanked or underbanked.
Low-income individuals, young adults and the less-educated are also more likely to lack accounts or banking services, as are recent immigrants and people with poor English-language skills.
Those demographics are clearly reflected in New Mexico, where nearly 41 percent of Hispanic families are unbanked or underbanked.
Read entire article:
A third of New Mexico households shun banks
http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2010/01/11/focus1.html?b=1263186000^2699691&ana=e_vert
Well, that’s their choice
Well, that’s their choice and we can’t do anything about it. For me, having a bank account is very important because it is one of my ways of saving money. Recession has brought too much depression and as far as I am concerned, we are not sure that we are on our way to recovery. It is the reason why in some countries, people save money as much as they can. Like in US, big banks like the Bank of America try to find ways to reach their costumer and render services without too much hassle like online banking.