Check Cashing, Pay Day Loans and Banks

In a very interesting article titled "Check Cashers, Redeemed", Douglas McGray writes for the New York Times Sunday Magazine about check cashers, pay day loans and banks.

McCray writes that about how the combined collection of check cashers and pay day lenders have "more outlets, in total, than all the McDonald’s restaurants in the United States plus all the Starbucks coffee shops. Inside, it’s like banking turned upside down. Poor customers are commodities, deposits are irrelevant, bad credit makes for a good loan candidate and recessions can be boom times."

In particular, he looks at Nix Check Cashing, a southern California-based company that was acquired last year for $45 million by one of the country’s largest credit unions, Kinecta.