Paper
Making Financial Services Work for Everyone
Proceedings from the "Financial Services for Low-Income Customers", Chicago, United States
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19 pages
Although the United States has one of the most sophisticated financial services industries, as many as 22 million American households - one family in five - have no bank account.
This paper summarizes the key themes of the discussions at the gathering hosted by Ford Foundation in June 2005. The participating members included:
- Policy advocates and issue experts;
- Foundation program officers;
- Private sector initiatives form Citi bank, Key bank, tax-preparation and financial services company;
- Think tanks and advocacy organizations;
- Senior Managing Director/National Practice at Shore Bank Advisory Services, who moderated the meeting.
The group had a consensus on the need to:
- Have an appropriate product mix and marketing strategy;
- Leverage existing community based delivery channels;
- Shift corporate culture, strategy and operations in order to realize the potential of low-income markets;
- Introduce push-pull strategy that will move individual companies and reshape the overall market context;
- Facilitate the progress of commercial organizations through thought leadership, research and development, building pathways to scale, and changing the policy environment by non-profits.
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