About Bank Talk

This is a blog about the alternative financial products that serve the un-banked population in America.  Un-banked and under-banked are terms that describe adults that lack either a savings or a checking account, or that use alternative financial services such as check cashers, pawn shops, and tax refund loans. The FDIC says that about 10 million Americans live in households that have one of these characteristics.

Bank Talk is meant to cover this marketplace. In the last year, refund anticipation loans have received the most attention. This reflects the rapid changes taking place in that space.

The alternative financial services industry is changing rapidly. Bank executives indicate that they plan to cut back on free checking in the near future. Increasingly, the unbanked use prepaid cards for many of the basic services offered to holders of checking accounts. They keep deposits on these cards, use them at ATMs or point of purchase kiosks, and even access them for credit.

We will be returning to a few favorites time and time again.  Some of our hot topics include:

• The Un-banked
• Refund Anticipation Loans
• Manufactured Housing
• The Community Reinvestment Act
• The Earned Income Tax Credit
• Sub-prime Lending
• Credit Cards
• Mortgage Lending
• The GSEs
• The Big Banks: Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase

Bank Talk is written by Adam Rust, the research director of the Reinvestment Partners.  Reinvestment Partners is a 501 (c) 3, based in Durham, North Carolina.  Adam earned a master’s degree in City Planning from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is currently pursuing a master’s in finance at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Adam recently started a three-year term as a member of the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, a group appointed the Commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration to advise the Department of Housing and Urban Development on standards for the construction of manufactured housing. Carolina Academic Press published his book,  ”This is My Home: The Challenges and Opportunities of Manufactured Housing“, in 2007. In 2011 he testified before the House Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity on the difficult issues facing the manufactured housing industry and its prospects for regaining its sales volume.

You can reach Adam by emailing him: adam at reinvestmentpartners dot org.