Financial Services and Education Project

"The administration made a calculated decision," says Ellen Seidman, former Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision and senior fellow at The New America Foundation ... and more »

Two of the three essential elements that comprise good financial services policy are robust consumer protections and effective safety and soundness laws.  The third component is policy that supports consumers' access to reasonably priced financial services.  This presentation, given at the 2009 FDIC Interagency Conference on Economic Inclusion, explores the necessary balance that must be struck to among the three elements to craft effective financial services policy, and it describes two federal policy proposals to provide underserved consumers with access… more

The New America Foundation and Appleseed hosted a timely roundtable discussion on a proposed policy aimed at clearing the path for opening basic bank accounts for immigrants and those who are new to the financial system. Participants included counsel and compliance officers of banks, prepaid firms and financial institution processors, representatives of nonprofits serving immigrant families, delegates from the Mexican Embassy and public policy experts.

Seidman, now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, said she created an award for the best bank examiner on consumer affairs and compliance issues ... and more »

Washington, D.C.—The U.S. Treasury Department is considering a policy to create an opt-out account, into which federal income tax refunds would be direct deposited.  In an interview for an article today in the Wall Street Journal, Michael Barr, Assistant Secretary for the Treasury Department described the proposal, which was developed by Melissa Koide at the New America Foundation to increase access to banking services and jumpstart savings

Over the past two decades, policymakers, academics, and others have pursued an array of policies and strategies to help lower and middle income households[i] to build savings and assets and access reasonably-priced financial products at mainstream institutions.  While some progress has been made, there have been few advances to delivering a high-value, affordable financial product at scale.

As a result of the current financial crisis, consumers are more concerned about their personal finances than ever before.  Household confidence in job security and future employment prospects, income stability, and the ability to preserve and build assets is plummeting; meanwhile, high fuel and food prices and tightening credit conditions are placing more pressure on households to maximize their financial decisions.

You can read books,” said Karen Murrell, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation, a nonprofit policy research organization in Washington. ...

This was presented on November 26th at the Citi-FT Financial Education Summit in Beijing.

With the big guns in the financial services industry in turmoil, it’s a good time to ask hard questions about the nature of our finance system. Does bigger always mean better? Or does small-scale "relationship" banking, in which individual savers and borrowers are members of the same community, help to make a better banking sector? Community banks and credit unions were regarded until recently as vestigial players in a new world of global consumer finance. But today they aren’t merely… more