THE SUPERVITAMIN QUARTERLY
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Letter from the President & CEO
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The CFE Fund team is in full swing preparing for our biennial Bank On National Conference in May. As we finalize the agenda, work with our speakers, and think long and hard about how to top our Bank On scroll pens with even better swag – I have also been stepping back to reflect upon these two-year snapshots of the movement.
The very first Bank On National Conference, in 2014, brought together the field of coalition leaders, elected officials, bank and credit union partners, regulators, and other stakeholders to determine the value in creating a shared national platform
–
and what role that platform should play. After all, the movement’s origins are local, and the dynamic, multi-sector coalitions are its strength. Local leaders and national partners alike at the standing-room-only event embraced strongly the need for both shared best practices and first-ever Bank On National Account Standards that specifically benchmark a shared vision for safe and affordable mainstream banking accounts. Regulators, financial institutions, coalition leaders, and others at that first conference voiced a strong desire to pool shared efforts for local coalition’s success, inspiring us and our partners to work together directly, rather than in parallel.
The fast-forward snapshot of the next conference, about two years later, reflected the strong foundational stages of the consumer banking market’s positive response to new Bank On National Account Standards, and the unmistakable beginning of field-wide cohesion. Just two years after the first conference, there were already nine financial institutions offering nationally certified accounts, including both all of the country’s largest banks and some of the smallest. In reaction to the enthusiastic appetite of
a vibrant Bank On learning community, the CFE Fund partnered to launch national tools for local use: the Bank On Coalition Playbook, an iterative technical assistance tool to help coalitions learn from each other’s best practices; a Bank On coalition logic model, to outline a detailed vision for what coalition success looked like; and multi-city programs, to demonstrate how banking access could be integrated at scale into public service infrastructure. These tools, together with a newly-launched Bank On Fellowship cohort that supported full-time coalition leadership in 5 locations, marked the turning point toward professionalism for the ever-growing Bank On movement.
Now, as the third biennial conference approaches, the Bank On field demonstrably is in full gear. Certified accounts are now offered in dozens of banks and credit unions large and small across the entire country, with dozens more financial institutions in their development pipelines. And these accounts are flying off the shelves, measurably. Following a successful pilot, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis has partnered with the Bank On movement to launch a new Bank On National Data Hub to aggregate data on account uptake and usage. Local coalitions are launching and relaunching across the country, with and without our national grant support, and large-scale banking access integration programs abound at both local and national levels.
Banking access matters. Inclusion in the financial mainstream is, in fact, foundational to stability and success. Across these biennial conference snapshot moments, I see the Bank On movement rallying to that cause, working in myriad ways through incredibly diverse coalitions, both locally and together as a national community. To come together to move the market. To surpass expectations for programming success. To push harder to make a measurable difference.
Thanks, as always, for your partnership.
Jonathan
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In January, the CFE Fund released the newly-updated
Bank On National Account Standards (2019-2020)
, outlining core and recommended features for low-cost, low-fee, safe and affordable transaction accounts. Already, 31 accounts certified as meeting the Bank On National Account Standards are available at over 21,600 branches across the country, with dozens more in the pipeline for certification soon. In tandem with the updated Standards, the CFE Fund released a new chapter of our Bank On Coalition Playbook,
Bank On National Account Standards: Annotated Standards
, which details the Standard’s terms.
Registration is now open for the 2019 Bank On National Conference!
Join us May 29, 2019 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.
Every two years, the
Bank On National Conference
brings together key stakeholders from multiple sectors across the country: local Bank On coalition program leads and their community partners, city administrators, financial institutions large and small, federal banking regulators, national nonprofit organizations, philanthropic partners, consumer advocates, researchers, and more.
Conference topics
will include innovations in safe and affordable financial products, strategies for banking access connectivity and integration into public programs, new professional approaches to coalition leadership, Bank On account data collection updates, and measuring banking access success.
Register here!
The CFE Fund’s Bank On efforts are supported by multiple partners, including seed funder JPMorgan Chase Foundation, as well as Bank of America, the Citi Foundation, TD Bank, U.S. Bank, Wells Fargo, and more.
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The CFE Fund's Summer Jobs Connect (SJC) initiative, generously funded by the Citi Foundation, connects over 110,000 low-income youth each year with summer jobs and access to appropriate bank and credit union products and meaningful just-in-time financial education. This multi-city banking access initiative has spread to youth and other workforce programs across the country.
The CFE Fund released three videos that detail the experiences of SJC participants as they worked their summer job, engaged in financial education, opened bank accounts, built savings, and more. Watch San Francisco SJC participant Irfran’s experience here:
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To learn more about the Summer Jobs Connect initiative, contact
I-Hsing Sun
, Chief Program Officer.
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The CFE Fund’s Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) initiative FEC Public, with seed support from Bloomberg Philanthropies and others including The JPB Foundation and Wells Fargo, already supports over two dozen local governments in working to launch free, professional one-on-one financial counseling as a free public service for residents in need.
Professionalizing the Field of Financial Counseling and Coaching
Professionally trained FEC counselors help consumers with low incomes manage their finances, pay down debt, increase savings, establish and build credit, and access safe and affordable mainstream banking products. Each of the CFE Fund’s FEC partners train their financial counselors in accordance with the requirements and competencies detailed in CFE's newly established
FEC Counselor Training Standards
and
Code of Ethics.
These delineate the breadth and depth of the financial content areas, counseling and coaching skills, practice and experiential learning, and socio-economic and cultural context setting necessary to serve the diverse needs and backgrounds of FEC clients.
To facilitate local counselor training, the CFE Fund has
already approved
ten national and regional training providers’ courses that align with the FEC Standards; additionally, the CFE Fund encourages local training providers (partner organizations, training consultants, community colleges, or universities) to submit their trainings for CFE Fund evaluation and approval.
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Over the last several months, the CFE Fund has worked closely with its 10 CityStart local government partners in successfully completing intensive municipal financial empowerment bootcamps in each city. Now, CityStart partners are in the development phase of creating a financial empowerment blueprint that will outline their administration’s public vision and plan for integrating financial empowerment efforts within local government infrastructure. CityStart partners are considering a range of financial empowerment strategies – some are aiming to open an Office of Financial Empowerment to serve as a platform for overall efforts, some are identifying strategies centered around a specific municipal priority such as affordable housing, and some look to start by replicating existing programs such as the Financial Empowerment Center FEC Public initiative. Cities continue to work with their local nonprofit and community organizations, philanthropic partners, and other key stakeholders to ensure that the final blueprint reflects broad community input across mayoral priorities.
CityStart is supported by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation and others, and current city program partners include
Albuquerque, NM; Anchorage, AK; Dallas, TX; Durham, NC; El Paso, TX; Fort Worth, TX; Portland, OR; Rochester, NY; Saint Paul, MN; and Tulsa, OK.
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Saint Paul, MN Mayor Melvin Carter kicks off the CityStart bootcamp.
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Ready to kickstart municipal financial empowerment efforts in your community? Stay tuned next month for an upcoming grant opportunity!
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With seed funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and additional support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the CFE Fund is proud to welcome the City of Albuquerque, NM as a fourth partner on our
Local Consumer Financial Protection Initiative
. Over the next two years, the CFE Fund will work with the Albuquerque City Attorney’s Office to establish a new office dedicated to local residents' financial protection.
The City of Albuquerque joins Denver, CO; Nashville, TN; and Salt Lake City, UT, that are currently working with the CFE Fund to develop consumer complaint systems and build offices of consumer financial protection within their local governments.
This summer, the CFE Fund will host a national convening on local consumer financial protection, bringing together city and county governments as well as field experts to discuss the unique role that local government can play in creating a more transparent and fairer marketplace for residents.
Our keynote speaker will be Founding Former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Richard Cordray.
To learn more about the Consumer Financial Protection Initiative, contact
Kant Desai
, Principal.
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Guest Column:
Expanding Banking Access Through Dedicated Bank On Leadership
By
Linlin Liang, Bank On Fellow, Bank On Suncoast
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As a first-generation immigrant, I had to learn to navigate the U.S. financial system quickly in a short period of time. This first-hand experience gave me a valuable perspective on the connection between having a financial identity and achieving financial success in this country. Banking access is a crucial step on the path to financial prosperity, because only within the financial mainstream can individuals build savings, credit, and assets. Knowing the value of financial inclusion, I was thrilled to join the first Bank On Fellowship cohort, leading the Bank On Suncoast Coalition full-time in West Central Florida. My work has shown just how important a full-time leader is to banking access success.
The first step of banking access expansion is to improve the checking account marketplace for the unbanked. Bank On Suncoast Coalition hosts financial institution roundtables to introduce the Bank On National Account Standards and kickstart account certification conversations with financial institutions.
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We also share our partnership agreement, which covers the benefits and responsibilities of being a local Bank On partner. For example, we promote every Bank On certified account through program materials and our website. For a new coalition like ours, it is critical to have the capacity of dedicated leadership in building relationships with financial institutions.
Another essential layer to expanding banking access involves partnering with community organizations and municipalities. These leaders are very familiar with the challenges faced by unbanked residents. Workforce development clients, for example, often use prepaid cards to receive their paychecks, which can have very high fees. However, many workforce organizations do not have the capacity to address banking access issues. As a Fellow, I’ve helped my coalition develop tools, including an increasing number of safe and affordable certified accounts, banking education modules, and account opening opportunities, to assist community programs in adding banking access services. Building this type of program infrastructure and partnerships requires dedicated Bank On leadership and expertise, as well as input from community organizations, municipalities, and national Bank On stakeholders.
Bank Suncoast recently worked to identify and map potential banking access integrations, focusing on opportunities to deploy banking education, provide clear action steps to get banked, and offer continued banking assistance. We just kicked off an integration with Goodwill Manasota that incorporates account opening touchpoints and a banking needs evaluation into Goodwill’s hiring process and their employee coaching program. Now, employees can access safe and affordable bank accounts at their workplace, and avoid payroll card fees. Additionally, using a checking account will open doors for Goodwill employees to build banking relationships with financial institutions. Our Coalition also now works with returning citizens, refugee groups, and graduating students to provide banking access timed with these transformative life events.
The Bank On community is a fantastic place to share and connect on different banking access topics. The five Fellows share marketing and integration design best practices, and have created regional collaborations to share successes. The cohort has been an excellent resource to me and our Coalition, helping me learn how to negotiate accounts with financial institutions, design a banking access integration, and advocate for banking access on behalf of many unbanked and underbanked people. Locally, our Coalition convenes annual Financial Inclusion Summits to share local and national banking insights, identify local banking issues, and support concrete solutions. At last year’s Summits, we identified “banking deserts” in our region - local governments are now committed to building creative banking solutions for residents in these areas. With continued support from the City of St. Petersburg and the City of Sarasota, we will host the second round of Summits to share the Coalition’s impact on expanding banking access and grow collective efforts - please join us if you are based in
St. Petersburg/Tampa
or
Sarasota
areas!
Only as a full-time Bank On Fellow can I imagine creating such a comprehensive roadmap to improve the checking account marketplace and connect unbanked and underbanked people in my community with safe and affordable banking products. Building relationships with community stakeholders and identify program partners requires a substantial amount of time and effort, but is so critical to expanding banking access – and the other Fellows have been invaluable to my work. I’m excited to keep building the momentum of our local Bank On efforts and the broader Bank On movement.
The Bank On Fellowship program is made possible through the generous support of Wells Fargo.
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News from the CFE Coaliton
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Boston's Bridge to Hospitality Celebrates Three Years
As part of its financial capability work, the city of Boston launched a Bridge to Hospitality workforce development program focusing on culinary training, with four weeks at our Financial Opportunity Center spent on basic skills, followed by advanced training with partners.
This video
highlights the program and some success stories from the first three years.
Lansing Mayor Andy Schor Encourages Local Businesses to Hire Returning Citizens
Lansing’s Office of Financial Empowerment is the regional administrative agency for the State of Michigan’s Offender Success program. The program provides wrap-around services – from bus passes and clothing vouchers to employment readiness and work tools – to returning citizens referred to the program by their parole agent. At a
recent event
, employers who attended received multiple resources, including fidelity bonding opportunities and Work Opportunity Act Tax credit information, as well as resumes.
New York City Announces New Rules for For-Profit Schools
New York City Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) Commissioner Lorelei Salas
announced new proposed rules
to regulate for-profit schools. The proposed rules would require for-profit schools to provide prospective students with disclosures about the total cost of the program, graduation rates for the past two years, and the median time to complete the program. DCA’s rules would also prohibit false or misleading statements about potential salaries, job placement services or rates, the time to complete a program, and more.
New York City Hosts Student Loan Debt Clinics:
DCA’s Office of Financial Empowerment (OFE) hosted
student loan debt clinics
to help New Yorkers with student loan debt understand debt and repayment options, enroll in Income Driven Repayment plans and loan forgiveness programs, rehabilitate loans, and improve their credit. The clinics were held in the Bronx and Brooklyn, home to 19% and 15% respectively of the New York City residents who hold a student loan that is 90+ days past due
.
DCA is planning additional student loan debt clinics throughout Spring 2019.
St. Louis College Savings Program Continues to Grow
The
College Kids Program
, based in St. Louis City Treasurer Tishaura O. Jones’s Office of Financial Empowerment, has now opened savings accounts for over 12,000 children to date in St. Louis public schools grades K-3, with nearly $900,000 saved and growing.
Military Veterans Financial Empowerment Pilot Program in St. Louis
The St. Louis City Treasurer’s Office of Financial Empowerment is piloting a
“Welcome Home” program
in collaboration with staff from the Division of Workforce Development of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, for former servicemembers to find out how to save money on mortgages, closing costs, and more.
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Current Grant Opportunities
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Stay tuned for more grant opportunities coming soon!
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Bank On Coalition Playbook
Overview of the Financial Empowerment Center (FEC) Counselor Training Standards
This new
overview
summarizes the FEC model’s Counselor Training Standards. The Standards delineate the breadth and depth of the financial content areas, counseling and coaching skills, practice and experiential learning, and socio-economic and cultural context setting necessary to serve the diverse needs and backgrounds of FEC clients. The Standards also include a Code of Ethics that promotes responsible, professional and ethical financial counseling, furthering the profession of one-on-one financial counseling.
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Financial Empowerment "In the News"
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- Bank Accounts Designed for Low-Income Customers Find Broader Audience, Wall Street Journal
- Banking on “Bank On”, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
- Cashless stores may be good – for highlighting plight of the unbanked, Philadelphia Inquirer
- Booker Bill Would Create Federally Funded Savings Account for Every Child, The Hill
- City of Roanoke to conduct kick-off meeting, introduce new financial centers, Virginia First
- Goodwill Manasota Receives $40,000 grant from CFE Fund, Sarasota Magazine
- How Workers Get Paid is Changing: Consumer Protections Need to Catch Up, Center for American Progress
- Introducing banking to those who don’t, Arkansas Democrat Gazette
- Little Rock shelter, bank partnering on money literacy program, Arkansas Democrat Gazette
- Pittsburgh Launching Financial Empowerment Center Initiative, CBS Pittsburgh
- Pittsburgh’s new Financial Empowerment Center offers free advice on education in underserved neighborhoods, Next Pittsburgh
- Pittsburgh offering free financial counseling at 8 centers, Pittsburgh Tribune Review
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