• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, March 18, 2013

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.