Complete CFSI Underbanked Consumer Study Now Available

Since June 2008, CFSI has released limited results from the study, including a definitive number and description of the national underbanked population: 106 million U.S. adults – 40 million households – who are financially underserved, either lacking a bank account or regularly using non-traditional financial services to meet their financial needs.

The CFSI Underbanked Consumer Study profiles eight distinct segments of the underbanked population. For example, the largest segment of the underbanked population is the Next Wave, representing approximately 23% of the underbanked—a total of 24 million consumers. The Next Wave is the youngest segment with 52% between ages 18-34. Because this group generally has no bank account but is highly entrepreneurial with a strong ambition for the future, CFSI suggests the following strategies for reaching the Next Wave:

• Use transaction services to upsell into prepaid cards.
• Offer links to small business services, financial advice and credit-building services.
• Invest long-term, as this group has big plans for the future.
• Lenders trying to reach this group should provide small dollar, revolving credit and need to calibrate underwriting to new/infrequent borrowers.

“The CFSI Underbanked Consumer Study is a big leap forward in understanding these customers, and provides a crucial building block in constructing successful long-term relationships with them,” says Jennifer Tescher, Director of CFSI. ”Our experience working with national, regional and community level institutions has shown us that better customer information leads to better results.”

CFSI employs its wealth of industry knowledge and solid strategic advice to add depth and value to the results of this study, including specific recommendations for product development, risk management, and marketing and distribution strategies for each of the eight segments.

In addition to strategic advice, cross-tabs analyzing financial behavior and attitudes for groups of underbanked consumers based on age, gender, household income, ethnicity, employment status, marital status, banking status, behavioral segmentation and analysis of the credit scores of different groups of underbanked consumers are available for purchase.

The CFSI Underbanked Consumer study was co-sponsored by four companies, including Citi, H&R Block, and MasterCard. CFSI and these sponsors commissioned Experian Simmons to conduct a national segmentation analysis of underbanked consumers according to their attitudes, behaviors, preferences, needs and experiences. The findings are a result of a survey of 2,799 underbanked respondents, representative of the U.S. adult population

For more information or to purchase the complete CFSI Underbanked Consumer Study, please contact Rachel Schneider at segmentation@cfsinnovation.com or call (312)881-5816. To view the limited results already released from the CFSI Underbanked Consumer Study, visit our website.