unbanked and underbanked

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The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives by Lisa Servon

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, basic income, behavioural economics, Build a better mousetrap, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, choice architecture, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, do well by doing good, employer provided health coverage, financial exclusion, financial independence, financial innovation, gender pay gap, gentrification, George Akerlof, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, Jane Jacobs, Joseph Schumpeter, late fees, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, medical bankruptcy, microcredit, Occupy movement, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, precariat, Ralph Nader, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller, Ronald Reagan, Savings and loan crisis, sharing economy, subprime mortgage crisis, too big to fail, transaction costs, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, universal basic income, Unsafe at Any Speed, We are the 99%, white flight, working poor, Zipcar

xvii “banked” (they use only banks): Burhouse et al., “2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.” One in five African American households: Ibid. “mainstream banking services”: Julie Menin, “Bad Alternative to Banks,” letter to the editor, New York Times, November 14, 2014. xviii Jacob Hacker writes that: Jacob Hacker, The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008). A recent study conducted by: Burhouse et al., “2013 National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.” xix put their trust in banks: GlobeScan, “Seven Years on from the Financial Crisis, Trust in Banks Remains at All-Time Low” (Toronto, Ontario: GlobeScan, July 2, 2015). http://www.globescan.com/news-and-analysis/blog/entry/seven-years-on-from-the-financial-crisis-trust-in-banks-remains-at-all-time-low.html 1.

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Additionally, in response to the claim that the maintenance of a bank account is a sign of stability, I say this: In a labor market such as ours, where the college diploma has been wholly devalued, where median wages have remained stagnant for far too long, and where firms dispense of people as if they were unnecessary appendages, to what degree is financial stability actually attainable? And at what cost? While people try to adapt to these changing situations, policymakers’ view of personal finance has remained static. The Federal Deposit and Insurance Corporation (FDIC) conducts the biannual “National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.” The survey classifies respondents as “banked” (they use only banks and credit unions), “unbanked” (they have no bank account), or “underbanked” (they have bank accounts but continue to rely on alternative financial services). As of 2013, the year of the FDIC’s most recent survey, approximately 8 percent of Americans were unbanked and another 20 percent were underbanked.

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As of 2013, the year of the FDIC’s most recent survey, approximately 8 percent of Americans were unbanked and another 20 percent were underbanked. The picture looks far worse for people of color. One in five African American households and nearly 18 percent of Latino households are unbanked. Policymakers, alarmed by these statistics, have been working hard to enfranchise the unbanked and underbanked. They insist that a formal relationship with a mainstream financial institution will improve these people’s lives. Convinced that having a bank account enables one to move up the economic ladder, they paint banks as the good guys and alternatives as the bad guys. This simplistic view reflects unstated value judgments.

How the Other Half Banks: Exclusion, Exploitation, and the Threat to Democracy by Mehrsa Baradaran

access to a mobile phone, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, banks create money, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, British Empire, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, cashless society, credit crunch, David Graeber, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, diversification, failed state, fiat currency, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Glass-Steagall Act, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, housing crisis, income inequality, Internet Archive, invisible hand, junk bonds, Kickstarter, low interest rates, M-Pesa, McMansion, Michael Milken, microcredit, mobile money, Money creation, moral hazard, mortgage debt, new economy, Own Your Own Home, Paul Volcker talking about ATMs, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, price discrimination, profit maximization, profit motive, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan: Tear down this wall, Savings and loan crisis, savings glut, subprime mortgage crisis, the built environment, the payments system, too big to fail, trade route, transaction costs, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, union organizing, W. E. B. Du Bois, white flight, working poor

This is the story of South Africa’s foray into mobile banking: In South Africa, where only half the population has bank accounts, but nearly everyone has a mobile phone, a company called WIZZIT set out to bank the unbanked with an aspiring worldwide mission to “change the world by providing banking opportunities to the 4 billion unbanked and under-banked [globally] through cell phone technology, leading to a reduction in poverty and the creation of economic citizens.”79 However, the company not only failed to reduce poverty worldwide, but as it turned out, the banked and higher-income population, who relied on the service to conduct more banking transactions at increased convenience, comprised most of its South African customer base.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “Nashville, TN: Field Hearing on Payday Loans,” March 2014, accessed March 17, 2015, youtu.be/ZpnXG0UdeoQ; CFPB, “Payday Loans and Deposit Advance Products,” April 24, 2013, 15; CFPB White Paper of Initial Data Findings, accessed March 17, 2015, files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201304_cfpb_payday-dap-whitepaper.pdf; Susan Urahn et al., “Payday Lending in America: Who Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why,” Pew Charitable Trust, 2012, 32, accessed March 17, 2015, www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/pcs_assets/2012/PewPaydayLendingReportpdf.pdf. 56. FDIC, “National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households,” Executive Summary, September 2012, 5, accessed March 17, 2015, www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport_execsumm.pdf; Gregory Elliehausen and Edward C. Lawrence, “Payday Advance Credit in America: An Analysis of Consumer Demand,” Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Credit Research, monograph no. 35, 2001, 28, 33, accessed March 17, 2015, www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/cfr/2005/jan/CFRSS_2005_elliehausen.pdf. 57.

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Households in 2013,” July 2014, 5, accessed March 17, 2015, www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2013-report-economic-well-being-us-households-supplemental-appendix-201407.pdf; A 2011 National Bureau of Economic Research study showed about half of households surveyed reported that they couldn’t come up with $2,000 within thirty days in a pinch, even if they turned to relatives for help. Annamaria Lusardi et al., “Financially Fragile Households: Evidence and Implications,” (NBER working paper no. 17072, May 2011), accessed March 17, 2015, www.nber.org/papers/w17072; A 2011 FDIC survey put 29.3 percent of households without a savings account. FDIC, “Unbanked and Underbanked Households,” 3. 62. Dan Mangan, “Medical Bills Are the Biggest Cause of U.S. Bankruptcies: Study,” CNBC, June 25, 2013, accessed March 17, 2015, www.cnbc.com/id/100840148. 63. Federal Reserve Board of Governors, “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households in 2013,” accessed March 17, 2015, www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/2013-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201407.pdf; www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/business/unsteady-incomes-keep-millions-of-workers-behind-on-bills-.html, accessed March 17, 2015. 64.

No Slack: The Financial Lives of Low-Income Americans by Michael S. Barr

active measures, asset allocation, Bayesian statistics, behavioural economics, business cycle, Cass Sunstein, cognitive load, conceptual framework, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, financial exclusion, financial innovation, Home mortgage interest deduction, income inequality, information asymmetry, it's over 9,000, labor-force participation, late fees, London Interbank Offered Rate, loss aversion, low interest rates, machine readable, market friction, mental accounting, Milgram experiment, mobile money, money market fund, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, New Urbanism, p-value, payday loans, race to the bottom, regulatory arbitrage, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, Robert Shiller, search costs, subprime mortgage crisis, the payments system, transaction costs, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked

Farley, Reynolds, Sheldon Danziger, and Harry J. Holzer. 2000. Detroit Divided. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Fay, Scott, Erik Hurst, and Michelle J. White. 2002. “The Household Bankruptcy Decision.” American Economic Review 92:706–18. FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). 2009. FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/full_report.pdf). FRS (Federal Reserve System). 2010. The 2010 Federal Reserve Payments Study (www. frbservices.org/files/communications/pdf/press/2010_payments_study.pdf). FRTIB (Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board). 2007. Thrift Savings Plan Participant Survey Results, 2006–07 (www.frtib.gov/pdf/FOIA/2006-TSP-Survey-Results.pdf).

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“Payday Advance Credit in America: An Analysis of Customer Demand.” Monograph 35. Washington: Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business (www.fdic.gov/bank/analytical/cfr/2005/jan/ CFRSS_2005_elliehausen.pdf). FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). 2009. FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/full_report.pdf). Green, Paul E., and V. Srinivasan. 1978. “Conjoint Analysis in Consumer Research: Issues and Outlook.” Journal of Consumer Research 5:103–23 (www.jstor.org/stable/2489001). 12864-02_CH02_3rdPgs.indd 52 3/23/12 11:55 AM managing money 53 Kish, Leslie. 1949.

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(December). (www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/ academics/economics/beyond_cash_and_carry.pdf). Dove Consulting. 2000. “Survey of Non-Bank Financial Institutions for the Department of Treasury.” Report prepared for the U.S. Treasury Department (April 4). ———. 2008. “Banks’ Efforts to Serve the Unbanked and Underbanked.” Report prepared for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (December). Doyle, Joseph J., Jose A. Lopez, and Marc R. Saidenberg. 1998. “How Effective Is Lifeline Banking in Assisting the ‘Unbanked’?” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Current Issues in Economics and Finance 4, no. 6: 1–6 (www.newyorkfed.org/research/current_issues/ci4-6. pdf ).

Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World by Don Tapscott, Alex Tapscott

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Airbnb, altcoin, Alvin Toffler, asset-backed security, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, behavioural economics, bitcoin, Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, blockchain, Blythe Masters, Bretton Woods, business logic, business process, buy and hold, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon credits, carbon footprint, clean water, cloud computing, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, commons-based peer production, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, currency risk, decentralized internet, digital capitalism, disintermediation, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, driverless car, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, failed state, fiat currency, financial innovation, Firefox, first square of the chessboard, first square of the chessboard / second half of the chessboard, future of work, Future Shock, Galaxy Zoo, general purpose technology, George Gilder, glass ceiling, Google bus, GPS: selective availability, Hacker News, Hernando de Soto, Higgs boson, holacracy, income inequality, independent contractor, informal economy, information asymmetry, information security, intangible asset, interest rate swap, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, jimmy wales, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, Kodak vs Instagram, Lean Startup, litecoin, Lyft, M-Pesa, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Marshall McLuhan, means of production, microcredit, mobile money, money market fund, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, Oculus Rift, off grid, pattern recognition, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer model, performance metric, Peter Thiel, planetary scale, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, price mechanism, Productivity paradox, QR code, quantitative easing, radical decentralization, ransomware, Ray Kurzweil, renewable energy credits, rent-seeking, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, search costs, Second Machine Age, seigniorage, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, smart grid, Snow Crash, social graph, social intelligence, social software, standardized shipping container, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Stewart Brand, supply-chain management, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, The Nature of the Firm, The Soul of a New Machine, The Wisdom of Crowds, transaction costs, Turing complete, Turing test, Tyler Cowen, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, unorthodox policies, vertical integration, Vitalik Buterin, wealth creators, X Prize, Y2K, Yochai Benkler, Zipcar

Trading is the buying and selling of assets and financial instruments for the purpose of investing, speculating, hedging, and arbitraging and includes the posttrade life cycle of clearing, settling, and storing value. Blockchain cuts settlement times on all transactions from days and weeks to minutes and seconds. This speed and efficiency creates opportunities for unbanked and underbanked people to participate in wealth creation. 6. Funding and Investing: Investing in an asset, company, or new enterprise gives an individual the opportunity to earn a return, in the form of capital appreciation, dividends, interest, rents, or some combination. The industry makes markets: matching investors with entrepreneurs and business owners at every stage of growth—from angels to IPOs and beyond.

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Exchanging Value—speculating, hedging, and arbitraging. Matching orders, clearing trades, collateral management and valuation, settlement and custody Blockchain takes settlement times on all transactions from days and weeks to minutes and seconds. This speed and efficiency also creates opportunities for unbanked and underbanked to participate in wealth creation Investment, wholesale banking, foreign exchange traders, hedge funds, pension funds, retail brokerage, clearinghouses, stock, futures, commodities exchanges; commodities brokerages, central banks, regulators 6.

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Wealth is how much money you have. Value is where you participate.”29 Blockchain can enable every person to have a unique and verifiable reputation-based identity that allows them to participate equally in the economy. The implications of this equality are profound. Lubin imagines a future where the “unbanked and underbanked will become increasingly enfranchised as microlending services will enable investors across the globe to construct diverse portfolios of many microloans of which the usage and repayment can be tracked in full detail on the blockchain, using Balanc3’s [a ConsenSys portfolio company] triple-entry accounting system, for instance.”30 In this new future, when people repay microloans, they are on their way to securing more and larger loans to build their businesses.

Blockchain: Blueprint for a New Economy by Melanie Swan

23andMe, Airbnb, altcoin, Amazon Web Services, asset allocation, banking crisis, basic income, bioinformatics, bitcoin, blockchain, capital controls, cellular automata, central bank independence, clean water, cloud computing, collaborative editing, Conway's Game of Life, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, digital divide, disintermediation, Dogecoin, Edward Snowden, en.wikipedia.org, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fault tolerance, fiat currency, financial innovation, Firefox, friendly AI, Hernando de Soto, information security, intangible asset, Internet Archive, Internet of things, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, Large Hadron Collider, lifelogging, litecoin, Lyft, M-Pesa, microbiome, Neal Stephenson, Network effects, new economy, operational security, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, peer-to-peer model, personalized medicine, post scarcity, power law, prediction markets, QR code, ride hailing / ride sharing, Satoshi Nakamoto, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, SETI@home, sharing economy, Skype, smart cities, smart contracts, smart grid, Snow Crash, software as a service, synthetic biology, technological singularity, the long tail, Turing complete, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, Vitalik Buterin, Wayback Machine, web application, WikiLeaks

For example, the Islamic Bank of Bitcoin is investigating ways to conduct Sharia-compliant banking with Bitcoin.92 A key point of Bitcoin neutrality is that the real target market for whom Bitcoin could be most useful is the “unbanked,” individuals who do not have access to traditional banking services for any number of reasons, estimated at 53 percent of the worldwide population.93 Even in the United States, 7.7 percent of households are forecast to be unbanked or underbanked.94 Bitcoin neutrality means access for the unbanked and underbanked, which requires Bitcoin solutions that apply in all low-tech environments, with features like SMS payment, paper wallets, and batched blockchain transactions. Having neutrality-oriented, easy-to-use solutions (the “Twitter of emerging market Bitcoin”) for Bitcoin could trigger extremely fast uptake in underbanked markets, continuing the trend of 31 percent of Kenya’s GDP being spent through mobile phones.95 There are different SMS Bitcoin wallets and delivery mechanisms (like 37Coins96 and Coinapult, and projects like Kipochi97 that are integrated with commonly used emerging-markets mobile finance platforms like M-Pesa.

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v=BT8FXQN-9-A. 92 Senbonzakura (handle name). “Islamic Bank of Bitcoin.” Bitcoin Forum, June 24, 2011. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=21732.0. 93 Chaia, A. et al. “Half the World Is Unbanked.” McKinsey & Co, March 2009. http://mckinseyonsociety.com/half-the-world-is-unbanked/. 94 “2013 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households,” U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, updated October 28, 2014, https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/. 95 Mims, C. “M-Pesa: 31% of Kenya’s GDP Is Spent Through Mobile Phones.” Quartz, February 27, 2013. http://qz.com/57504/31-of-kenyas-gdp-is-spent-through-mobile-phones/. 96 Cawrey, D. “37Coins Plans Worldwide Bitcoin Access with SMS-Based Wallet.”

The Curse of Cash by Kenneth S Rogoff

Alan Greenspan, Andrei Shleifer, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, blockchain, Boris Johnson, Bretton Woods, business cycle, capital controls, Carmen Reinhart, cashless society, central bank independence, cryptocurrency, debt deflation, disruptive innovation, distributed ledger, Dr. Strangelove, Edward Snowden, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, Fall of the Berlin Wall, fiat currency, financial exclusion, financial intermediation, financial repression, forward guidance, frictionless, full employment, George Akerlof, German hyperinflation, government statistician, illegal immigration, inflation targeting, informal economy, interest rate swap, Isaac Newton, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johannes Kepler, Kenneth Rogoff, labor-force participation, large denomination, liquidity trap, low interest rates, Modern Monetary Theory, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, moral hazard, moveable type in China, New Economic Geography, offshore financial centre, oil shock, open economy, payday loans, price stability, purchasing power parity, quantitative easing, RAND corporation, RFID, savings glut, secular stagnation, seigniorage, The Great Moderation, the payments system, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, transaction costs, unbanked and underbanked, unconventional monetary instruments, underbanked, unorthodox policies, Y2K, yield curve

Review of Economic Studies 81 (2): 725–60. Farhi, Emmanuel, and Ivan Werning. 2016. “A Theory of Macroprudential Policies in the Presence of Nominal Rigidities” (May). Mimeo, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. Forthcoming in Econometrica. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. 2014. “2013 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households.” Washington, DC. Available at https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/. Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. 2012. “Diary of Consumer Payment Choice.” Boston. ———. 2013. “Survey of Consumer Payment Choice.” Boston. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. 2004. “How Much Currency Is Circulating in the Economy, and How Much of It Is Counterfeit?”

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See also Bank of England United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 69, 74, 240n34 United States: Automated Clearing House system, 103; Bitcoin, regulation of, 210; cash circulating, amount of, 31–33; corruption in, 70–71; cost in GDP of buying back all paper currency, 217; counterfeiting, efforts to suppress, 77–78; currency entering or leaving the country, requirement to report large amounts of, 41; currency/GDP ratio, 1948–2015, 33, 36–37; currency/GDP ratio, 1995, 46; currency held by consumers, 3, 49–52; currency of, international significance of, 15–16; currency per capita, 37–38, 40; currency usage, 53–54; discount rate cuts in response to recent crises, 131–32; double-digit inflation, 183; foreign holdings of currency, 39–42, 236n19; foreign holdings of currency, 1985–2015, 45; foreign holdings of currency, estimating, 42–45; gold standard, post–World War I adjustments to, 29; the government’s profit from printing money, 81–82 (see also seigniorage); illegal drug market, estimated size of, 69; inflationary periods in, 27–28; Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, 72; large-denomination notes, 3, 31; negative interest rates in response to the financial crisis, 123; New York Federal Reserve discount rates, 1929–1939, 128–29; nominal policy interest rates, 2000–2015, 130; $100 bills, rise in demand for, 32–33; $100 North Korean counterfeit “supernote,” 78; paper currency, profits from monopoly on, 217; paper currency in colonial, 26–27; paper currency phaseout, costs and benefits of, 88–89; paper currency supply in small bills, percentage of, 85; payments by instrument type, 54; payments per dollar amount per consumer, 54; phaseout of large-denomination paper currency, proposal for, 95; quantitative easing in, 140–42; revenue as a percentage of GDP, 2006–2015, 83–84; scanner data from retail transactions, 56–57; sexual exploitation in, 74; short-term market interest rates, 1929–1939, 129; tax evasion in, 60–61, 83; terrorism and efforts to tighten enforcement of money-laundering regulations, 77; unauthorized immigrants in, 75; the unbanked and underbanked in, 98; underground economy, estimated size of, 62–63; Volcker’s disinflation effort, 119 universal financial inclusion, 98–100 Velde, François R., 19, 234n13 Venezuela, 184 Vietnam, 191 Vissing-Jorgensen, Annette, 141 Volcker, Paul, 119, 189, 191 Wallace, Neil, 104–5, 225–26 Wallace conjecture, 105, 225–26 Walsh, Carl, 231 Wang, Zhu, 56 Weber, Guglielmo, 239n13 Weber, Warren E., 234n13 Werning, Ivan, 251n3 White, Walter, 240n27 White, William, 176 Williams, John C., 133, 244n11, 245n17 Wolman, Alexander, 56, 244n11, 255n9 Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The (Baum), 192 Woodford, Michael, 145, 227, 230, 243n9 Wu, Jing Cynthia, 244n5, 247n28 Xerxes (king of Persia), 18 Xia, Fan Dora, 244n5, 247n28 Xi Jinping (president of People’s Republic of China), 71 Xu Caihou, 71 Yellen, Janet, 229, 255n5 zero bound constraint, 4–5, 119–27; black hole, similarity to, 124; consumption taxes as approach to, 156–57; fiscal policy and, 249n12; forward guidance as approach to, 145–46; higher inflation targets as approach to, 147–51; historical experiences with, 128–32; macroeconomic stabilization policy and, 124–25; mitigating, options for, 125–27; monetary policy and, 123–24, 227–30; opportunistic fiscal policy as approach to, 154–56; previous experiences of, 122; quantitative easing as approach to (see quantitative easing); quantitative implications of, literature on, 132–35; reemergence of, reasons for, 120–22; relaxing the rigidity of the inflation-targeting framework as approach to, 152–54; targeting nominal GDP as approach to, 151–52.

The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything by Paul Vigna, Michael J. Casey

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, altcoin, Amazon Web Services, barriers to entry, basic income, Berlin Wall, Bernie Madoff, Big Tech, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Blythe Masters, business process, buy and hold, carbon credits, carbon footprint, cashless society, circular economy, cloud computing, computer age, computerized trading, conceptual framework, content marketing, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cyber-physical system, decentralized internet, dematerialisation, disinformation, disintermediation, distributed ledger, Donald Trump, double entry bookkeeping, Dunbar number, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, failed state, fake news, fault tolerance, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Garrett Hardin, global supply chain, Hernando de Soto, hive mind, informal economy, information security, initial coin offering, intangible asset, Internet of things, Joi Ito, Kickstarter, linked data, litecoin, longitudinal study, Lyft, M-Pesa, Marc Andreessen, market clearing, mobile money, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Network effects, off grid, pets.com, post-truth, prediction markets, pre–internet, price mechanism, profit maximization, profit motive, Project Xanadu, ransomware, rent-seeking, RFID, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, self-driving car, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, smart contracts, smart meter, Snapchat, social web, software is eating the world, supply-chain management, Ted Nelson, the market place, too big to fail, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, Turing complete, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, universal basic income, Vitalik Buterin, web of trust, work culture , zero-sum game

CHAPTER SEVEN After a long multi-decade fight with the city: Jorge Salomón, “El barrio Charrúa, una pequeña Bolivia en el sur de Buenos Aires,” El País, February 12, 2016, http://www.elpaisonline.com/index.php/2013-01-15-14-16-26/sociedad/item/204708-el-barrio-charrua-una-pequena-bolivia-en-el-sur-de-buenos-aires. Hernando de Soto estimates that: Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else (Basic Books, 2000). 7.7 percent of the population is “unbanked,”: Lori London, “The Top 10 Unbanked and Underbanked Cities,” goEBT, March 29, 2017, https://www.goebt.com/the-top-10-unbanked-and-underbanked-cities/. For the more than 2 billion adults worldwide: Global Findex Database, World Bank, 2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/globalfindex. UN’s plan to eradicate global poverty: Sustainable Development Goals, United Nations, http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/.

Data-Ism: The Revolution Transforming Decision Making, Consumer Behavior, and Almost Everything Else by Steve Lohr

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 23andMe, Abraham Maslow, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Albert Einstein, Alvin Toffler, Bear Stearns, behavioural economics, big data - Walmart - Pop Tarts, bioinformatics, business cycle, business intelligence, call centre, Carl Icahn, classic study, cloud computing, computer age, conceptual framework, Credit Default Swap, crowdsourcing, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, Danny Hillis, data is the new oil, data science, David Brooks, driverless car, East Village, Edward Snowden, Emanuel Derman, Erik Brynjolfsson, everywhere but in the productivity statistics, financial engineering, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Future Shock, Google Glasses, Ida Tarbell, impulse control, income inequality, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, informal economy, Internet of things, invention of writing, Johannes Kepler, John Markoff, John von Neumann, lifelogging, machine translation, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, meta-analysis, money market fund, natural language processing, obamacare, pattern recognition, payday loans, personalized medicine, planned obsolescence, precision agriculture, pre–internet, Productivity paradox, RAND corporation, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, Robert Solow, Salesforce, scientific management, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, SimCity, six sigma, skunkworks, speech recognition, statistical model, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, The Design of Experiments, the scientific method, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, Tony Fadell, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, Von Neumann architecture, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, yottabyte

Consider start-up ZestFinance: Douglas Merrill’s descriptions and quotes come from an interview on Oct. 30, 2013. fees paid by payday borrowers: For the average borrowers and amounts outstanding, Merrill did his own current estimates as of late 2013. But he also referenced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s report in September 2012, 2011 FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households. http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf. And he also referred to a July 2012 report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Payday Lending in America: Who Borrows, Where They Borrow, and Why. http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2012/07/19/who-borrows-where-they-borrow-and-why.

The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance by Eswar S. Prasad

access to a mobile phone, Adam Neumann (WeWork), Airbnb, algorithmic trading, altcoin, bank run, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke: helicopter money, Bernie Madoff, Big Tech, bitcoin, Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, Bletchley Park, blockchain, Bretton Woods, business intelligence, buy and hold, capital controls, carbon footprint, cashless society, central bank independence, cloud computing, coronavirus, COVID-19, Credit Default Swap, cross-border payments, cryptocurrency, deglobalization, democratizing finance, disintermediation, distributed ledger, diversified portfolio, Dogecoin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, eurozone crisis, fault tolerance, fiat currency, financial engineering, financial independence, financial innovation, financial intermediation, Flash crash, floating exchange rates, full employment, gamification, gig economy, Glass-Steagall Act, global reserve currency, index fund, inflation targeting, informal economy, information asymmetry, initial coin offering, Internet Archive, Jeff Bezos, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, light touch regulation, liquidity trap, litecoin, lockdown, loose coupling, low interest rates, Lyft, M-Pesa, machine readable, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, mobile money, Money creation, money market fund, money: store of value / unit of account / medium of exchange, Network effects, new economy, offshore financial centre, open economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, PalmPilot, passive investing, payday loans, peer-to-peer, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, Ponzi scheme, price anchoring, profit motive, QR code, quantitative easing, quantum cryptography, RAND corporation, random walk, Real Time Gross Settlement, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, risk/return, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, robo advisor, Ross Ulbricht, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, seigniorage, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, smart contracts, SoftBank, special drawing rights, the payments system, too big to fail, transaction costs, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, Vision Fund, Vitalik Buterin, Wayback Machine, WeWork, wikimedia commons, Y Combinator, zero-sum game

The latter term refers to households that had, in the previous twelve months, used an “alternative financial services provider” for one of these products or services: money orders, check cashing, international remittances, payday loans, refund anticipation loans, rent-to-own services, pawnshop loans, or auto title loans. FDIC statistics on financial inclusion in the United States are available at Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, October 2018, https://economicinclusion.gov/downloads/2017_FDIC_Unbanked_Underbanked_HH_Survey_ExecSumm.pdf. The survey found that proportions of the unbanked and underbanked were higher among lower-income households, less educated households, younger households, Black and Hispanic households, working-age disabled households, and households with volatile income. The New York City Council took the legislative action on January 23, 2020.

A World of Three Zeros: The New Economics of Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Carbon Emissions by Muhammad Yunus

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", active measures, Bernie Sanders, biodiversity loss, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, clean water, conceptual framework, crony capitalism, data science, distributed generation, Donald Trump, financial engineering, financial independence, fixed income, full employment, high net worth, income inequality, Indoor air pollution, Internet of things, invisible hand, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Lean Startup, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, microcredit, new economy, Occupy movement, profit maximization, Silicon Valley, the market place, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, too big to fail, Tragedy of the Commons, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, urban sprawl, young professional

I have been advocating for years to create new banking laws to allow the setting up of banks for the poor as opposed to the present laws focused on creating banks for the rich. Doing patchwork on the existing laws to allow noncollateralized lending to the unbanked can have very little success—especially while the need for banking for the unbanked and underbanked is so vast. I try to present the case by pointing out that financial services are the oxygen of individual economic life. This oxygen is delivered extremely generously to the topmost people; in fact, they enjoy a kind of economic fire that sucks up nearly all the oxygen that is available.

Smart Money: How High-Stakes Financial Innovation Is Reshaping Our WorldÑFor the Better by Andrew Palmer

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Alan Greenspan, algorithmic trading, Andrei Shleifer, asset-backed security, availability heuristic, bank run, banking crisis, behavioural economics, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Black-Scholes formula, bonus culture, break the buck, Bretton Woods, call centre, Carmen Reinhart, cloud computing, collapse of Lehman Brothers, collateralized debt obligation, computerized trading, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, Daniel Kahneman / Amos Tversky, David Graeber, diversification, diversified portfolio, Edmond Halley, Edward Glaeser, endogenous growth, Eugene Fama: efficient market hypothesis, eurozone crisis, family office, financial deregulation, financial engineering, financial innovation, fixed income, Flash crash, Google Glasses, Gordon Gekko, high net worth, housing crisis, Hyman Minsky, impact investing, implied volatility, income inequality, index fund, information asymmetry, Innovator's Dilemma, interest rate swap, Kenneth Rogoff, Kickstarter, late fees, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, longitudinal study, loss aversion, low interest rates, margin call, Mark Zuckerberg, McMansion, Minsky moment, money market fund, mortgage debt, mortgage tax deduction, Myron Scholes, negative equity, Network effects, Northern Rock, obamacare, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Peter Thiel, principal–agent problem, profit maximization, quantitative trading / quantitative finance, railway mania, randomized controlled trial, Richard Feynman, Richard Thaler, risk tolerance, risk-adjusted returns, Robert Shiller, Savings and loan crisis, short selling, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, statistical model, subprime mortgage crisis, tail risk, Thales of Miletus, the long tail, transaction costs, Tunguska event, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, Vanguard fund, web application

“Withering Away,” Economist, May 19, 2012. 4. Harry DeAngelo and René Stulz, “Why High Leverage Is Optimal for Banks” (NBER Working Paper 19139, August 2013). NOTES TO CHAPTER 8 1. Victor Stango, “Are Payday Lending Markets Competitive?” Regulation (Fall 2012); “National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households” (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, 2011). 2. “Margin Calls,” Economist, February 16, 2013. 3. Meta Brown et al., “The Financial Crisis at the Kitchen Table: Trends in Household Debt and Credit,” Current Issues in Economics and Finance 19 (2013). 4. Atif Mian and Amir Sufi, “The Consequences of Mortgage Credit Expansion: Evidence from the 2007 Mortgage Default Crisis” (NBER Working Paper 13936, April 2008). 5.

Mastering Blockchain: Unlocking the Power of Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts by Lorne Lantz, Daniel Cawrey

air gap, altcoin, Amazon Web Services, barriers to entry, bitcoin, blockchain, business logic, business process, call centre, capital controls, cloud computing, corporate governance, creative destruction, cross-border payments, cryptocurrency, currency peg, disinformation, disintermediation, distributed ledger, Dogecoin, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, fault tolerance, fiat currency, Firefox, global reserve currency, information security, initial coin offering, Internet of things, Kubernetes, litecoin, low interest rates, Lyft, machine readable, margin call, MITM: man-in-the-middle, multilevel marketing, Network effects, offshore financial centre, OSI model, packet switching, peer-to-peer, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, QR code, ransomware, regulatory arbitrage, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robinhood: mobile stock trading app, Ross Ulbricht, Satoshi Nakamoto, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart contracts, software as a service, Steve Wozniak, tulip mania, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, Vitalik Buterin, web application, WebSocket, WikiLeaks

After the departure of Joyce Kim, the Foundation began a long pivot, founding a company called Lightyear.io in 2017 (which became Interstellar in 2018 after acquiring the blockchain company Chain) to promote and encourage adoption of the protocol. Like Ripple, Stellar is focusing on cross-border payments, albeit with a more unbanked and underbanked bent, attempting to provide services to those who lack financial access. Scaling Blockchains In technology terms, scaling is the ability of a network to dynamically change resource allocation while improving or maintaining efficiency. Scaling has been a challenge as Bitcoin has grown: as more transactions end up on the blockchain, the network needs to continue providing a cheap and easy way to transact.

Digital Bank: Strategies for Launching or Becoming a Digital Bank by Chris Skinner

algorithmic trading, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, augmented reality, bank run, Basel III, bitcoin, Bitcoin Ponzi scheme, business cycle, business intelligence, business process, business process outsourcing, buy and hold, call centre, cashless society, clean water, cloud computing, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, cross-border payments, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, demand response, disintermediation, don't be evil, en.wikipedia.org, fault tolerance, fiat currency, financial innovation, gamification, Google Glasses, high net worth, informal economy, information security, Infrastructure as a Service, Internet of things, Jeff Bezos, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, M-Pesa, margin call, mass affluent, MITM: man-in-the-middle, mobile money, Mohammed Bouazizi, new economy, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, Pingit, platform as a service, Ponzi scheme, prediction markets, pre–internet, QR code, quantitative easing, ransomware, reserve currency, RFID, Salesforce, Satoshi Nakamoto, Silicon Valley, smart cities, social intelligence, software as a service, Steve Jobs, strong AI, Stuxnet, the long tail, trade route, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, upwardly mobile, vertical integration, We are the 99%, web application, WikiLeaks, Y2K

The discussion of their success is covered later in this journal in my interview with John Maynard, but the key comment he makes is that since M-PESA launched in 2007, the number of people who now have bank accounts with the traditional banks has almost quadrupled. The reason? As mobile money provides inclusion for the unbanked and underbanked, they become recognised as financially viable citizens and therefore for financial inclusion by being banked. Similarly, when banks find they cannot offer services to customers through this credit crisis that were previously offered, such as credit, other services gain traction. This is clear from the rise of crowdfunding platforms like kickstarter and social lending services like Zopa, Smava and Prosper.

Frugal Innovation: How to Do Better With Less by Jaideep Prabhu Navi Radjou

3D printing, additive manufacturing, Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, barriers to entry, Baxter: Rethink Robotics, behavioural economics, benefit corporation, Bretton Woods, business climate, business process, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, carbon footprint, circular economy, cloud computing, collaborative consumption, collaborative economy, Computer Numeric Control, connected car, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, crowdsourcing, disruptive innovation, driverless car, Elon Musk, fail fast, financial exclusion, financial innovation, gamification, global supply chain, IKEA effect, income inequality, industrial robot, intangible asset, Internet of things, job satisfaction, Khan Academy, Kickstarter, late fees, Lean Startup, low cost airline, M-Pesa, Mahatma Gandhi, Marc Benioff, megacity, minimum viable product, more computing power than Apollo, new economy, payday loans, peer-to-peer lending, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, planned obsolescence, precision agriculture, race to the bottom, reshoring, risk tolerance, Ronald Coase, Salesforce, scientific management, self-driving car, shareholder value, sharing economy, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, smart grid, smart meter, software as a service, standardized shipping container, Steve Jobs, supply-chain management, tacit knowledge, TaskRabbit, TED Talk, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, the long tail, The Nature of the Firm, Tony Fadell, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, value engineering, vertical integration, women in the workforce, work culture , X Prize, yield management, Zipcar

In June 2014, AmEx launched a Financial Innovation Lab, where researchers and counsellors work together to support credit building and savings; the lab’s results will be made publicly available. Through these multiple initiatives, AmEx is attempting to understand and solve a complex, multi-dimensional socio-economic problem. The unbanked and underbanked spend 10% of their $1 trillion disposable income on fees, the same amount as they spend on food. Schulman asks:13 “Imagine if you could turn loose almost $100 billion back into the economy?” Engage restless entrepreneurs, hackers and tinkerers Airbnb, an online short-let rental company, was launched in 2008 by Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, two young people with no experience of the hotel industry.

The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives by Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler

Ada Lovelace, additive manufacturing, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, AlphaGo, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Amazon Robotics, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, barriers to entry, Big Tech, biodiversity loss, bitcoin, blockchain, blood diamond, Boston Dynamics, Burning Man, call centre, cashless society, Charles Babbage, Charles Lindbergh, Clayton Christensen, clean water, cloud computing, Colonization of Mars, computer vision, creative destruction, CRISPR, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, data science, Dean Kamen, deep learning, deepfake, DeepMind, delayed gratification, dematerialisation, digital twin, disruptive innovation, Donald Shoup, driverless car, Easter island, Edward Glaeser, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Elon Musk, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, Erik Brynjolfsson, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, experimental economics, fake news, food miles, Ford Model T, fulfillment center, game design, Geoffrey West, Santa Fe Institute, gig economy, gigafactory, Google X / Alphabet X, gravity well, hive mind, housing crisis, Hyperloop, impact investing, indoor plumbing, industrial robot, informal economy, initial coin offering, intentional community, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, job automation, Joseph Schumpeter, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, Kiva Systems, late fees, Law of Accelerating Returns, life extension, lifelogging, loss aversion, Lyft, M-Pesa, Mary Lou Jepsen, Masayoshi Son, mass immigration, megacity, meta-analysis, microbiome, microdosing, mobile money, multiplanetary species, Narrative Science, natural language processing, Neal Stephenson, Neil Armstrong, Network effects, new economy, New Urbanism, Nick Bostrom, Oculus Rift, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), out of africa, packet switching, peer-to-peer lending, Peter H. Diamandis: Planetary Resources, Peter Thiel, planned obsolescence, QR code, RAND corporation, Ray Kurzweil, RFID, Richard Feynman, Richard Florida, ride hailing / ride sharing, risk tolerance, robo advisor, Satoshi Nakamoto, Second Machine Age, self-driving car, Sidewalk Labs, Silicon Valley, Skype, smart cities, smart contracts, smart grid, Snapchat, SoftBank, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stealth mode startup, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steve Jurvetson, Steven Pinker, Stewart Brand, supercomputer in your pocket, supply-chain management, tech billionaire, technoutopianism, TED Talk, Tesla Model S, Tim Cook: Apple, transaction costs, Uber and Lyft, uber lyft, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, urban planning, Vision Fund, VTOL, warehouse robotics, Watson beat the top human players on Jeopardy!, We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, X Prize

With AI, huge groups of people can come together, share financial information, and pool risk, becoming the peer-to-peer market now known as “crowdlending.” Prosper, Funding Circle, and LendingTree are three examples in a market expected to grow from $26.16 billion in 2015 to $897.85 billion by 2024. A different example is the Smart Finance Group. Created in 2013 to serve China’s massive unbanked and underbanked population, Smart Finance uses an AI to comb a user’s personal data—social media data, smartphone data, educational and employment history, etc.—to generate a reliable credit score nearly instantly. With this method, they can approve a peer-to-peer loan in under eight seconds, including microloans to the unbanked.

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist by Alex Zevin

"there is no alternative" (TINA), activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, affirmative action, Alan Greenspan, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, bank run, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bretton Woods, British Empire, business climate, business cycle, capital controls, carbon tax, centre right, Chelsea Manning, collective bargaining, Columbine, Corn Laws, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, creative destruction, credit crunch, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, debt deflation, desegregation, disinformation, disruptive innovation, do well by doing good, Donald Trump, driverless car, Edward Snowden, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial deregulation, financial innovation, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Gini coefficient, Glass-Steagall Act, global supply chain, guns versus butter model, hiring and firing, imperial preference, income inequality, interest rate derivative, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Jeremy Corbyn, John von Neumann, Joseph Schumpeter, Julian Assange, junk bonds, Khartoum Gordon, land reform, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, light touch regulation, Long Term Capital Management, low interest rates, market bubble, Martin Wolf, means of production, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Monroe Doctrine, Mont Pelerin Society, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, new economy, New Journalism, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, no-fly zone, Norman Macrae, Northern Rock, Occupy movement, Philip Mirowski, plutocrats, post-war consensus, price stability, quantitative easing, race to the bottom, railway mania, rent control, rent-seeking, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, Seymour Hersh, Snapchat, Socratic dialogue, Steve Bannon, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Thomas Malthus, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, unbanked and underbanked, underbanked, unorthodox policies, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, WikiLeaks, Winter of Discontent, Yom Kippur War, young professional

In red, white and black, the cover read ‘Pro Logo’, and savaged the Canadian activist Naomi Klein for her ‘utterly wrong-headed’ No Logo (1999), the best-selling ‘bible of the anti-globalisation movement’.49 For his part, Emmott spied untrammelled vistas for financial innovation until the end. In his last signed piece in 2006, he hailed US banks for entering sectors served only by payday lenders and pawnbrokers. Citibank signed an agreement with 7-Eleven to put cash machines in 5,500 stores, while credit card companies ‘targeted the unbanked and under-banked’ – poor minorities and immigrants, who stood to gain from access to cheaper credit. (Banks anticipated culling $9 billion in fees from them, and that was ‘before any cross-selling of other products’.) The subprime mortgage crisis hit the next year. Among the community banks Emmott cited as paragons, just one limped into 2012.50 Yet the crash barely checked his stride.