Living Bankless
The CBC had an interesting article about the growing number of Americans who are Bankless. One in twelve families do not deal with banks in the U.S., but a lot of it may be the same reason folks who are on welfare in Canada can’t cash their cheques: the Banks do not want their business. In Canada one of the biggest issues is Banks refusing to open bank accounts for people with no fixed address, who usually live on government assistance, then these folks cannot cash their cheques at the bank (and maybe put some money in a bank account, or worse, cannot afford $13 a month to leave money in their account) so they have to go to Cheque Cashing places, which charge usury fees to cash the cheque! These places are the modern day equivalent of the Loan Shark (in my opinion).
Banks are a funny business, in that they can actually turn away customers, yet still have obscene profits, (remember the best way to make income from a bank is to buy their stock).
Finally, did you realize that it is now less than 6 months until Christmas? The year is more than half over? Where did it go? Maybe time to start Planning For Christmas.
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June 26th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Wal-Mart is providing some banking services in the US. For example, cheque cashing for $3. That can help customers without bank accounts.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:39 am
Better than nothing, I guess, but why not allow for no fee, if you buy a minimum of $50 or whatever? I think this whole thing is a shell game, that I don’t like.
But it’s a start, as long as they don’t have to use Money Mart!
–C8j