The "Underbanked" Bank Outside The Bank

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Javelin Strategy & Research’s latest report outlines opportunities for financial institutions, billers, mobile carriers, and bill-pay innovators to enhance the online and mobile options with electronic payments for this underserved population. When it comes to paying bills, too often the nation’s 37 million underbanked American’s do it using hard and costly ways: in cash, and in person, by mail, or by phoning call center’s. The report provides a four-part profile of underbanked Americans, those without a checking account. The report also includes an analysis of how they typically pay seven of the most common bills.

The U.S. Underbanked are young and come from lower-income brackets (2012):

Mark Schwanhausser, Director, Multichannel Financial Services at Javelin Strategy & Research, says “The underbanked are not a homogenous group that can be easily targeted with a one-size fits all approach... there is a win-win ROI opportunity to improve bill payment services and cut processing costs by better understanding and targeting the 15% of Americans who are underbanked.”

When it comes to paying bills, the underbanked are just like Americans at large. They want safe and convenient ways to control the flow of payments. As a result, persuading the underbanked to try paying bills online or on their smartphones is likely to be similar marketing and educational themes that motivates consumers at large.

Javelin Strategy & Research’s How to Build Better Online and Mobile Bill-Pay for the Underbanked is based on the analysis of four online surveys of more than 17,000 consumers. The report contains 35 pages and 13 graphs.

For more information from Javelin Strategy, please visit here.

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2 comments on "The "Underbanked" Bank Outside The Bank".

1. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited
   

   commented on: March 18, 2013 at 10:37 a.m.
   Magic will happen when certain people hit their heads and overcome the virus about investing and increasing budgets for teaching age appropriate mandatory courses about money in schools from K-12. Of course, it is not magic. Then again, the church's main enemy in the 15th century was the printing press because too many people would learn to read and be able to think for themselves.
2. Melissa Chyba from Archer Mobile
   

   commented on: March 19, 2013 at 9:44 p.m.
   There are a number of mobile solutions that would fit well  with the underbanked age group and income level who have a high smartphone penetration rate (56% for under $15K, Source: Nielsen).   Call center costs could be reduced and operational efficiencies dramatically improved, by delivering dynamic alerts to their smart phones.  My company works with several banks, municipalities, and retailers to deliver MMS statements that have quantifiably reduced operating costs, improved collection metrics, maintained security and mitigated risk.

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