Underbanking (Underbanked)
“Underbanking” occurs when geographical areas have only limited banking facilities. The term “underbanked” has been cited in print since a least 1935 and is often discussed with regard to poor neighborhoods.
“Unbanking”—a related term—is when people have no access to banks at all, or when people choose not to use a bank.
Wikipedia: Underbanked
The underbanked are people or businesses that have poor access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. The underbanked can be characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as cheque cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.
The underbanked are a distinct group from the unbanked, who are characterized by have no banking facilities at all.
Google Books
1935 Supplement to William Howard Steiner’s Money and Banking
By William Howard Steiner
New York, NY: H. Holt and Company
1935
Pg. 16:
Yet serious question has been raised whether some sections are not now underbanked, at least in that many places, and in certain states substantial areas, are not deprived of banking facilities.
Google Books
Commonwealth Banking Systems
By Wilfred Frank Crick
Oxford: Clarendon Press
1965
Pg. 149:
The growth of deposits is due also to the extension of banking services, in the form of new bank offices and increased faculties, to previously underbanked or even unbanked parts of the country.
Google News Archive
2 May 1970, Daytona Beach (FL) Morning Journal, “Senate Group Kills Branch Banking Bill” (AP), pg. 2, col. 4:
The lone vote in favor of branch banking came from a former banker, Sen. William Beaufort, D-Jacksonville, who warned legislators that sooner or later Florida must have branch banking to take its rightful place in the economy.
“You all have gotten emotional about this thing and if you listen with your head…Florida is the most underbanked state in the union,” Beaufort said.
17 July 1979, The Morning Union (Springfield, MA), “Businessmen gamble on new Vegas bank,” pg. 12, col. 4:
LAS VEGAS, Nev. (UPI)—Dollars are made, lost, warehoused, and inventoried in this world gambling capital where money literally is the prime commodity. But experts say the city is “underbanked”.
New York (NY) Times
Fading Red Line; A special report; New Hope in Inner Cities: Banks Offering Mortgages
By LESLIE WAYNE
Published: March 14, 1992
(...)
To bankers, the inner city is an “underbanked” market, in their parlance. And what they are finding is that making mortgages to inner-city borrowers promises to strengthen their bottom line in the long run, while not hurting it in the short term. More important, these loans have profound social and economic benefits for inner-city neighborhoods and for the quality of urban life in general.
OCLC WorldCat record
Are small countries underbanked?
Author: James A Hanson
Edition/Format: Article
Publication: Globalization and national financial systems, (2003), p. 91,
OCLC WorldCat record
Payroll cards : an innovative product for reaching the unbanked and underbanked
Author: United States. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Community Affairs Dept.
Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 2003.
Edition/Format: Computer file : Document : National government publication : English
OCLC WorldCat record
Financial empowerment for the unbanked and underbanked consumer : “crossing the red line”
Author: Rickie C Keys; University of Denver. Center for African American Policy.
Publisher: Denver, CO : University of Denver Center for African American Policy, [2007]
Edition/Format: eBook : Document : English
OCLC WorldCat record
New Frontiers in Banking Services : Emerging Needs and Tailored Products for Untapped Markets.
Author: Luisa Anderloni; Maria Debora Braga; Emanuele Maria Carluccio
Publisher: Dordrecht : Springer, 2007.
Edition/Format: eBook : Document : English
Summary:
Covers the issue of unbanking or underbanking in developed countries. This book also highlights the need for banks, financial institutions, and others to devote more efforts in understanding the problem of financial exclusion in order to offer to low-moderate-income people (LMI people) new opportunities of accessing financial services.
The Organic Prepper
Unbanking vs. Underbanking: How to Break Up with the Financial System
March 24, 2013
(...)
The US government actually has a name for people who have no bank accounts – they call these folks “the unbanked”. The FDIC defines the unbanked as “those without an account at a bank or other financial institution and are considered to be outside the mainstream for one reason or another.” Another term is “the underbanked” – “people or businesses that have poor access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. The underbanked can be characterized by a strong reliance on non-traditional forms of finance and micro-finance often associated with disadvantaged and the poor, such as check cashers, loan sharks and pawnbrokers.”