I've worked in the financial services industry for 20+ years. This is a load of horse manure. There are no traditional brick-and-mortar banks that restrict access to money. You put your money in, you take your money out. Credit might be a different story, but that's not what they're discussing in this article.
This is a Federal power grab. They're consuming every industry in this country to federalize it. In other words, they're implementing socialism/soft communism. First the student loan industry. Then healthcare. Now the financial services sector.
You nailed it. There is absolutely no need for the fed gov to be offering retail banking services to anybody. The notion that we have unbanked, underbanked, and underserved people is ridiculous. Those are fed gov vague justification words for a power grab. Just like “food desert” means fed gov needs to open its own food stores for the “underserved” people.
This comes from the folks in government who love Europe. All of their POs act as banks as well.
Of course anyone in Europe with any “get up and go” got up and left 200 years ago.
“Unbanked” people are those who operate only with cash and don’t want their money tracked. If you haven’t a bank account, it’s harder for the IRS or divorce courts to get hold of the money.
Dittos
I have a similar background.
The only people who are “unbanked” are people who choose to not go into a bank.
$9 billion seems like quite a lot of revenue to take out of an industry.
Roughly 25% of the people in the country live in communities that either have no bank or have limited access to banks. So unless Bank of America is willing to open a branch in every town or neighborhood in the country then this plan makes sense. It will fill a need that commercial banks don't want to fill and won't compete with commercial banks in areas where they are operating.
Yep. Spot on.