Take a look at this article by Lisa Servon titled THE HIGH COST, FOR THE POOR, OF USING A BANK. It’s good to see the New Yorker taking on both sides of the argument. The vibe you get is that banks are deceptive and they do not care about their customers. I can’t fault banks. They’re a business just like anyone else. They also get a lot of advantages that other business don’t. They get to borrow money at the lowest rates and they get bailed out when they bet big and fail.
I’ve been saying this for years. It’s not the people that use the check cashers and payday lenders that despise them. It’s the people that do not use the services. These people may have decent jobs and refuse the ignore that not everyone received the support they did growing up. It’s called reality. Instead of helping the underbanked, we take moral stances and make decisions for them by eliminating their options. You can fault a business for providing a service to someone, especially when they don’t have other options.
I like this quote: Joe Coleman, the president of RiteCheck, put it this way:
“Banks want one customer with a million dollars. Check cashers want a million customers with one dollar.”
