By Farah Manjiyani, Manager, Financial Health Network Despite the recent stimulus, increased vaccinations, and gathering momentum of reopenings across the country, millions are still struggling with their financial health. Ongoing economic uncertainty, job loss, and physical health concerns have caused many to shift financial priorities just to stay afloat. In the Financial Health Network’s latest...

By Marisa Walster, Senior Director On January 26, global business leaders announced a commitment to the core Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics released by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its International Business Council (IBC). This is just one example of a growing movement to put more teeth behind the idea of stakeholder capitalism — the notion...

By: Thea Garon, Senior Director As vaccines roll out across the country, the Biden administration is considering bold policies to help struggling households, businesses, and communities recover from the health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. For these efforts to be successful, the new administration – along with businesses, employers, and other stakeholders –...

By Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO, Financial Health Network Through our innovation work via the Financial Solutions Lab, we’ve reached more than 5 million low- to moderate-income consumers (and 10 million consumers in total) to date with solutions to improve their financial health. Innovation is at the heart of the Financial Health Network’s mission, fueling...

By Karla Henriquez, Senior Associate and Beth Brockland, Senior Director Throughout our “Good Jobs Matter” blog series, we have explored the relationship between good jobs and financial health, particularly for low-income workers. But for employers committed to supporting worker financial health, investing in job quality is only part of the solution. In this final installment...

By Helen Robb, Senior Manager, Financial Health Network With the arrival of a new administration in D.C. in a few weeks, it’s time to refocus on what Americans need now to support their financial health. Our recently released 2020 Trends Report found that many Americans were able to cope during the pandemic largely because of...

By Karla Henriquez Senior Associate This is a continuation of our Good Jobs Matter series, exploring “good jobs” and financial health. See the first blog in the series here. Which job qualities are most important for improving a worker’s financial health? As it turns out, wages matter, but so do benefits. For all workers, employee...

By Corey Stone Entrepreneur-in-Residence Back in early April, the Financial Health Network published a short piece of mine calling for banks and credit unions to grant universal forbearance on overdraft fees during the pandemic. I hypothesized that, as newly unemployed workers drained their savings to cover basic living expenses, many would overdraw their bank accounts...

By Karla Henriquez Senior Associate COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, resulting in higher unemployment than the Great Recession. Many of these workers have lost not only the financial security of a paycheck, but also the health benefits that often accompany a full-time job. Therefore, it...

By Tanya Ladha Senior Director No one saw 2020 coming. People started the year like any other, with big plans and resolutions for improvements, not thinking too much about how they’d manage in a sudden crisis. Employers were no different. Most had already finalized their budgets and projections, and were ready to deploy resources and...

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The opening lines of Charles Dickens’ iconic novel A Tale of Two Cities perfectly capture the paradoxical nature of this moment in time. Since March, the news has often featured contradictory narratives about the impact of the ongoing pandemic on people’s financial lives....

By Josh Sledge Senior Director One of the discussion points surrounding this year’s election has centered around who gets to vote and how. This has brought attention to the barriers in place for people with a criminal record. An estimated 5.2 million people are barred from voting because of a felony conviction, impacting a disproportionate...

by Marisa Walster, Senior Director Recent history has certainly been eventful for the financial services industry. From the Great Recession of 2008 to the rise of smartphones, the industry has been confronted by global catalysts that have changed the face of consumer banking in the U.S. As we face the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic...

By Matt Bahl Vice President, Market Lead Workplace, Financial Health Network Recently, the Financial Health Network entered into a new collaborative partnership with PayPal, JUST Capital, and the Good Jobs Institute to encourage the nation’s largest employers to prioritize employee financial health. This initiative, the Worker Financial Wellness Initiative, centers around a simple, yet often...

By Karla Henriquez Senior Associate Young adults are the most racially and ethnically diverse group in the country, yet they are often seen as a monolithic group. Summer 2020 unveiled inequities deeply ingrained in our society. For Black and Latinx communities, these are inequities that many have been fighting against for years. Our new report,...

By Laura Cummings Director, Financial Health Network It’s no secret that many small businesses don’t make it. Going into 2020, only about half of small businesses were expected to make it to their fifth year. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has further laid bare that financial shocks can be devastating to small business owners, both personally...

By Corey Stone Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Financial Health Network Now more than ever, consumers want and need tools that can help improve their financial health. While fintechs and other innovators have developed a new generation of personal finance tools, banks and credit unions have not yet adopted them widely. Banks already have the customer relationships, the data...

By Sarah Gordon, Chief Market Development Officer, Financial Health Network Over the last few years, the Financial Health Network has been working to identify new avenues to expand our mission of financial health for all. The workplace — specifically human resources practitioners at midsize and large employers– and healthcare emerged as two defining areas where organizations can...

By Dan Murphy, Policy Manager, Financial Health Network When the CARES Act was enacted on March 27, it stabilized the financial health of millions of families facing massive unemployment and other economic hardships in the wake of COVID-19. Unfortunately, it also left millions of American families out of the law’s broadest relief provision — Economic Impact Payments....

By Arjun Kaushal, Associate, Financial Health Network As Congress discusses the extension of stimulus programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the outstanding issues has been whether the next round of benefits will extend to the millions of undocumented immigrants and their families who have, so far, been left out. But this debate...

By Thea Garon, Senior Director,  Necati Celik, Associate and Andrew Dunn, Manager, Financial Health Network Since mid-March, the United States has lost more than 21 million jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to help people get by, the Treasury Department began distributing recovery rebates, or “stimulus payments,” on April 11 as part of the...

By Josh Sledge, Senior Director and Arjun Kaushal, Associate, Financial Health Network The tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of police has once again brought the inequities of the criminal justice system into focus. The violence captured on film has rightfully drawn a passionate response, as protestors demand justice for Floyd and an...

By Sarah Parker, Senior Director, Financial Health Network In the midst of the economic crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are realizing that insurance is not a nice-to-have; it’s a must-have. Life insurance carriers report a marked increase in interest from new customers who want to purchase policies, as people recognize the importance...

By Jacquelyn Reineke, Manager and Heidi Johnson, Director, Financial Health Network There is no denying that the COVID-19 crisis has turned the world upside down. Everyone has had to deal with daily changes to their routines and come to terms with a new normal, but vulnerable populations — in particular, aging Americans — have faced the most devastating consequences...

By Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO, Financial Health Network Below is the blog I shared with the Financial Health Network staff in the wake of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police and the protests and civil unrest that have followed: Putting emotions into words is hard right now. Like you, I...

By Alejandra Ruales, Senior Manager, Financial Health Network Amid the economic devastation of COVID-19, understanding the financial health of households has never been more important. In this time of uncertainty, financial health measurement can provide real-time information on how the virus is affecting customers, employees, and small businesses, as well as information on where organizations...

By David Silberman, Senior Advisor, Financial Health Network The COVID-19 pandemic has caused widespread economic dislocation. Tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, at least temporarily, and millions more have seen their hours drastically cut. Those job and wage losses have fallen disproportionately on low-wage workers, especially blacks and Latinos, who are concentrated...

By Hannah Gdalman, Associate and Stevenson Fellow, Financial Health Network With shelter in place orders in effect across the globe, more and more people are replacing their analog routines with digital ones — highlighting the increasing importance of technology as a means of social connection, personal empowerment, commerce, and financial management. For older generations, who face the...

By Thea Garon, Senior Director and Andrew Dunn, Manager, Financial Health Network Crises have a way of exposing the cracks and fissures in a society. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. As the disease moves across the country, it continues to lay bare deeply rooted disparities in financial health that leave black Americans especially vulnerable...

By Heidi Johnson, Director, Behavioral Economics, Financial Health Network In the past few weeks, record-breaking numbers of people have filed claims for unemployment as industries shut down in response to the novel coronavirus. Millions of people have very suddenly and unexpectedly lost their jobs or substantial portions of their income. While policymakers are responding by...

By Thea Garon, Senior Director and Andrew Dunn, Manager, Financial Health Network The COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout are likely to have the largest impact on those who are already struggling financially. Survey data from the University of Southern California and the U.S. Financial Health Pulse show that Financially Vulnerable Americans believe they are...

By Brenton Peck, Director and Tanya Ladha, Senior Director, Financial Health Network The impact of COVID-19 on colleges and universities across the country is unprecedented. Over the last few weeks, campuses have closed for the year or migrated to distance learning, faculty members are scrambling to create new systems for online learning, and graduations have...

By Steve Arves, Manager, Financial Health Network The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic has taken an exacting toll on many people’s retirement savings. Over the last month, the stock market took its largest dip in years, wiping out trillions of dollars in savings overnight. While it’s too soon to say whether these losses will...

By Matt Bahl, Vice President/Head of Workplace, Financial Health Network April is Financial Literacy Month, and the Financial Health Network, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is highlighting the importance of financial health in the workplace with #FinHealthMatters Day on April 7. In the wake of COVID-19, these are especially challenging times for workers everywhere, creating...

By Beth Brockland, Senior Director, Financial Health Network Reading about the coronavirus pandemic feels a little bit like watching the world unravel before our very eyes. Every day brings new stock market lows and emergency measures. At the same time, people all over the country are demonstrating remarkable acts of humanity, practicing social distancing to...

By Beth Brockland Senior Director, Financial Health Network March 26, 2020 Reading about the coronavirus pandemic feels a little bit like watching the world unravel before our very eyes. Every day brings new stock market lows and emergency measures. At the same time, people all over the country are demonstrating remarkable acts of humanity, practicing...

By Hannah Gdalman, Stevenson Fellow, Financial Health Network In light of the coronavirus outbreak, the Financial Health Network recently asked its employees, like a growing number of white-collar workers, to work from home and avoid all non-essential travel. Even though our offices have closed, we’re able to work remotely, take our meetings virtually, and proceed...

By Nadia van de Walle, Director at Financial Health Network Many families are faced with making tough healthcare decisions because of financial challenges. According to the 2019 Financial Health Pulse study, one in four Americans did not get healthcare and almost one in five stopped taking medication in the last year because they could not...

By Tanya Ladha, Senior Director at Financial Health Network Saving money is hard. So hard, in fact, that experts and academics have spent decades studying human behavior in an effort to make it easier for us, designing tricks and hacks that help us save — automating savings (think 401k retirement plans, created for us to set-it-and-forget-it), turning...

By Hannah Gdalman, Stevenson Fellow, Financial Health Network The recent open enrollment season means that for many of us, insurance is still top of mind. Other key moments such as the start of a new year, tax season, a new job, or family additions also provide a chance to reflect on insurance throughout the year....

By Chandni Ohri, Director, Financial Health Network In October 2019, Etsy signed on to BlackRock’s Emergency Savings Initiative as one of the inaugural partners because they recognize the challenge and importance of emergency savings for their sellers. Emergency savings is one of the building blocks to improving financial health. In fact, the recent U.S. Financial...

By Thea Garon, Director, Financial Health Network A few weeks ago, the Financial Health Network released new data from the U.S. Financial Health Pulse, a groundbreaking study designed to provide ongoing snapshots of financial health in America. Launched last year, the study draws upon consumer surveys and transactional data to assess how people are spending,...

By Jose Galindo, Workplace Financial Health Program Director, Financial Health Network I know first hand — as the founder and former CEO of moneymio.com, the first bilingual online platform dedicated to empowering Latinos in the United States with personal finance education — the challenge young fintech companies face, especially those who are focused on improving the financial health of...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network I’ve tried to mount a case that the new fintech apps that seem to have the greatest potential to improve consumers’ financial health represent “retronovations,” innovations that actually restore old practices. Earmarking income, adding fixed installments to revolving credit lines, digitizing and automating the check register,...

By John Thompson, Chief Program Officer, Financial Health Network Solving the U.S. savings epidemic requires cross-industry partnership and a long view towards better stability for millions. Earlier this year, the Financial Health Network joined forces with BlackRock and fellow nonprofit leaders Commonwealth and Common Cents Lab to make a sizable effort in addressing the nation’s...

By John Thompson, Chief Program Officer, Financial Health Network A main goal of the BlackRock Emergency Savings Initiative is to build and integrate better savings tools to help individuals, especially those with low-to moderate-income, save. My team at the Financial Health Network has done extensive research on the current savings crisis to better understand the...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network I recently tried reconnecting with a college friend I hadn’t seen for decades. We’d each settled on different coasts, married, and raised families. When I first reached out by email I found our communications jarring. The clipped, efficient sentences and abbreviations we typed on our devices...

By Tanya Ladha, Director, Financial Health Network Financial technology companies, or fintechs, have altered consumer’s approach to their financial lives and financial health. Whether someone wants to save more, budget better, track their spending, or all of the above, there are many apps to support those efforts. Fintech companies can reach consumers anywhere, anytime, with...

  Data plays an important role in improving consumers’ lives. While there are some risks to sharing data online, with the right safeguards in place, consumer data can provide powerful insights into people’s financial lives that financial service providers can use to develop products, programs, and solutions to improve their customers’ lives. The Financial Health...

By Laura Cummings, Director, Financial Health Network Amazon’s new Credit Builder secured card has ignited debate and dialogue about access to credit and the role secured cards can play in helping or harming consumers. We often hear about the millions of Americans who are deep in credit card debt, which points to the downside of...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network  The Sears Catalog was the Amazon of its time, containing just about everything one might want. In its heyday, large ticket items came with a monthly price and term for those who needed or wanted to pay for their purchases over time. Beginning in 1892, the...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network When it comes to saving and borrowing, our financial system sends conflicting messages. An example: Many banks offer tips on building an emergency savings fund to buffer against loss of employment, a period of disability, or large unexpected expenses; and they offer promotional rates on CDs...

By Beth Brockland, Senior Director, Workplace Financial Health Strategy Lead and Hannah Kramer, Program Associate, Financial Health Network Last month, more than 800 financial health advocates across industries and disciplines gathered in Scottsdale, AZ at the Financial Health Network’s 2019 EMERGE Financial Health Conference to reflect on “Trust, Tech and Transparency.” During the conference, a...

By John Thompson, Chief Program Officer, Financial Health Network People living in America do not have enough saved and are not saving enough. In May, the Federal Reserve Bank noted that most Americans don’t even have $400 available for an emergency, and this is especially true for half of low- to moderate-income Americans. But is...

Despite a strong economy and low unemployment, the U.S. Financial Health Pulse shows more than half of Americans are struggling to pay their bills, save and remain financially stable. The problem is most acute for low-income individuals. Five years ago, the Financial Health Network launched the Financial Solutions Lab (FinLab) in partnership with JPMorgan Chase...

By Eric Wilson, Associate, Financial Health Network Despite economic indicators showing exceptional GDP growth and record low unemployment, the 2018 U.S. Financial Health Pulse shows that a vast majority of Americans are struggling with their financial health. In April, the Financial Health Network, along with Pulse funders and partners, took the findings of this benchmarking...

By Tanya Ladha, Director, Financial Health Network What a week it was in Scottsdale for the 2019 EMERGE Financial Health Forum May 14–16! I want to thank everyone who joined us this year for a rigorous and insightful three days exploring Trust, Tech, and Transparency. I had the privilege of serving as this year’s emcee,...

Financial Health Network is pleased to announce the 2019 Financial Health Leaders Program participants. The selected organizations are members of the Financial Health Network that are at the forefront of financial health measurement and are contributing to a more resilient financial ecosystem. To be considered, companies must meet annual requirements, which adjust year-to-year based on...

By Chandni Ohri, Director, Financial Health Network The financial services industry has been trying to regain the trust and rebuild the relationship with their customers after the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis. In their efforts to regain trust and engage with customers, financial institutions are launching new initiatives focused on financial health and wellness....

By Rob Levy, Vice President, Research and Measurement, Financial Health Network April is Financial Literacy Month, and Financial Health Network is celebrating #FinHealthMatters Day on April 25th. Additionally, we frequently hear about financial inclusion, financial wellness, financial well-being, financial security, and more. Are these terms any different? What should be our real goal? Before the...

By Tanya Ladha, Director, Financial Health Network More than twenty million people living in America are pursuing higher education as an investment in their future. Higher education has long been a symbol of mobility and possibility in this country, however, too many students are struggling financially, navigating complicated and fragile economic lives. And these financial...

By Thea Garon, Director, Financial Health Network Today, Financial Health Network is excited to share the data set from the 2018 Baseline Survey of the U.S. Financial Health Pulse, a groundbreaking research initiative designed to provide ongoing snapshots of financial health in America. Stakeholders across the financial health ecosystem can explore these data to better...

By Andrew Dunn, Senior Associate, Financial Health Network For years, financial planners described the financial lives of individuals over 50 as following a predictable life cycle. The “traditional” path typically included diligently saving in an employer-provided retirement account, paying off a mortgage, then fully retiring while reducing expenses in order to live comfortably. However, this...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network My last overdraft changed our marriage. My wife Sue and I had started our life together back in the era of paper banking with separate checking accounts. We both worked and each of us took responsibility for different bills and then split our rent or mortgage....

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network Unless they have time to kill, on-street parkers who forget to bring enough change for the meter place themselves in a land of limited options. They can keep their appointment, but risk a parking ticket, or they can run in search of change and be late....

By Thea Garon, Director, Financial Health Network As 2018 draws to a close, I’m proud of the work Financial Health Network has done to launch the U.S. Financial Health Pulse, a groundbreaking research initiative designed to understand the financial lives of people in America. In November, we released the inaugural 2018 Baseline Report which established...

By Brenton Peck, Senior Manager, Financial Health Network Pictured: Joonsang Ahn, Hyuncha Choe, Kelcey Hwang, Soohyun Jung, Jongik Lee, Sera Park, Brenton Peck and Krishna Thacker A Sharing of Ideas: How cross-country exchanges can foster innovation Technology has given us new tools to communicate, share experiences and learnings, and collaborate. A physical trip to another...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network My last post highlighted how those who are trying to buy necessities and pay their bills while keeping their bank balances just above zero are often navigating in the dark when it comes to avoiding overdrafts. Lag times between when payments are initiated and when they...

By Thea Garon , Director, Financial Health Network This is Part 2 of the Measuring Financial Health series. See Part 1: Introducing the Financial Health Network Financial Health Score® Toolkit for more background on one easy way you can start measuring financial health within your organization. From where I sit as a Director at the...

By Thea Garon Director, Financial Health Network Despite a surging stock market and record-low unemployment, millions of Americans are struggling financially. Nearly half of Americans (47%) say their spending equaled or exceeded their income in the last year. One in three people (30%) say they have more debt than is manageable. More than a third...

By Karen Andres VP and head long-term saving and retirement at Financial Health Network Forget the holidays — my favorite time of year is fall. Time for sweaters, the crock pot, pumpkin carving, and college football. But there’s a less obvious reason to love fall: it’s benefits open enrollment season for most American companies, which means that...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network  My last two posts highlighted a subset of consumers who struggle at the ends of the month: the 9 percent of checking account-holders who overdraft more than 10 times per year and who pay four-fifths of the $15 billion in overdraft and NSF fees banks collect...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network My last post described the surprising cost — and inexplicability — of chronic overdrafting in the lives of households who struggle at the ends of the month. The small amounts and short periods of borrowing that overdrafts constituted led me to wonder why these consumers weren’t better able to avoid...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network My last post described the experience of serving cash-strapped consumers who needed to pay their bills at the last minute. Our business gave them a “faster payment” channel (before that term came to refer to next generation ACH). And we charged a small premium ($1 in...

By Roderick King, MD/MPH, CEO, Florida Institute for Health Innovation, Assistant Dean of Public Health Education, Director — MD/MPH Program at University of Miami MIller School of Medicine  and Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO, Financial Health Network Poor physical and financial health overwhelmingly go hand in hand. Financial insecurity leads to toxic stress and chronic disease while,...

By John Hammond, StartU Today marks the 3rd annual #FinHealthMatters day; an event started by the Center for Financial Services Innovation to draw attention to the 57% of Americans — approximately 138 million adults — that are struggling financially today. This year’s theme is student health; emphasizing the financial health of college students in America today. At StartU, this...

By Lily from The Frugal Gene The Teen Years Saving your own money for college does a lot more than just paying the tuition. Spending your own money teaches you about the value of money, provides a safety net, and gives you a preview of the working world. I’ll tell you my experience of going to...

By Melissa SunBurnt Saver One of my favorite quotes comes from Mary Oliver, the poet who wrote The Summer Day, which reads: “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Due to my annoying student loan debt, this quote haunts me more and more every time I have to...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network In my introduction to “The Ends of the Month” I described the growing unease I felt in the consumer payments business to which my career had led me. In the ’90s it was an exciting place to be, full of innovations and central to the early...

By Justine, from Debt Free Millennials Forget student loan debt. When I think about my college experience, it’s filled with memories of purple everything, late night study sessions at Hale Library, $2 You-Call-Its at O’Malley’s, and being flat broke. Me and my girls. All purple. Cheap beer. K-State Wildcats. And dirt poor! I was clueless...

Financial Health Network welcomes Gina Harman and Luz Urrutia as guest bloggers. Gina currently serves on Financial Health Network’s board of directors and Luz is a past member of Financial Health Network board of directors. Guest post co-authored by: Gina Harman, CEO, U.S. Network, Accion Luz Urrutia, CEO, Opportunity Fund As mission-based small business lenders,...

By Corey Stone, Entrepreneur in Residence, Financial Health Network For over 25 years I worked in the consumer payments and credit businesses — first as a management consultant, then as a payments technology executive. During that time I became increasingly uneasy about how the infrastructure we provided was serving the consumers who used it to construct their...

By Carmen Make Real Cents Have you seen those “priceless” MasterCard commercials? The ones that highlight sentimental moments like “seeing her smile” or “watching their first steps” are “priceless,” then end with “but for everything else there’s MasterCard.” That’s how I felt the day I walked across the stage to get my degree- priceless. It...

“We tend to spend when the checking account balance is high so I like being able to put in money when I need it, it’s more flexibility. I like the idea of having a buffer account that I can feed into my checking account. I get more control of my finances.” — Matt, Current Payroll Card User...

By Karen Andres Vice President, Financial Health Network Anyone who has heard the words “terminal,” “no cure,” or “palliative care” in a doctor’s office will remember everything about that moment. When I heard those words a decade ago about my 57-year-old mother, I immediately felt like I had been hit over the head by a...

At its annual EMERGE conference in Los Angeles, CA last week, Financial Health Network publicly released the Financial Health Network Financial Health Score™ Toolkit, a resource to help financial service providers diagnose, track, and ultimately improve their customers’ financial health. While the Toolkit has been available to Financial Health Network members since last October, this...

#FinHealthMatters Day 2018 April 25, 2018 was the third annual #FinHealthMatters Day. Each year, #FinHeathMatters Day brings attention to Americans’ financial health through a thunderclap of social media activity, news stories, blogs, podcasts and more. Over the past years we have seen 240+ blogs posted, 2,500+ influencers tweeting nearly 6,000 times, and ultimately, close to 27...

By Mindy Hauptman, Managing Director, Consulting Services, Financial Health Network Ready to tackle product innovations in order to improve your customers’ financial health? Financial Health Network Consulting Services is here to help. Request a consultation today. Innovative products result in happy customers, and customer satisfaction drives business. According to CFI Group’s Bank Satisfaction Barometer, products...

By Kaitlin Asrow, Financial Health Network Data breaches have become inevitable in our increasingly digital lives, but unlike other global events — from terrorism to the 2008 economic crisis — they have not yet become a catalyst for market-wide changes to business practices in industries that center on consumer data. But that may be changing. Recent events, from the...

By Tanya Ladha, Senior Director, Financial Health Network Last year I sat down with some students from local community colleges in New York, where I live. We were scheduled to spend time together discussing how their financial lives affect their academic success. As you might imagine, the conversation veered all over the place as the...

By Kate Flocken, Financial Health Network For more than 40 years, public policy has been actively promoting financial inclusion and how to enable consumers to have better access to high quality financial services, but the federal and state governments alike have struggled to keep up with the fast pace of change. Last week the Financial...

$250K for each selected startup The Financial Solutions Lab — managed by Financial Health Network with founding Lab partner JPMorgan Chase & Co. — is excited to announce that applications are open for our fourth Innovation Challenge. Selected companies and nonprofits will each receive a $250,000 investment as well as unparalleled access to resources that can help them grow. For...

By Jennifer Tescher, Financial Health Network Last week’s headlines gave the impression that America is suffering from a lack of basic financial access, particularly for lower-income consumers. The fact is, consumers have more access to high-quality, low- or no-cost transaction accounts than they have had in at least a decade, thanks to dramatic changes in...

By Tanya Ladha and Rachel Schneider, Financial Health Network Maybe you’ve been there — you break a dish, clean down the middle. You find the superglue, carefully squeeze a small stream of the potent liquid on either side of the break, and patiently hold for the allotted 90 seconds. When you move to place the mended dish...

By Jeanne Hogarth, Financial Health Network The recent turmoil in leadership at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the initial actions of the acting director point to at least one conclusion: For consumers to continue to have access to high quality, innovative products that help them improve their financial health, focus needs to shift...

Building financial health can be a challenge for financially underserved consumers. What products address their needs in this evolving marketplace? To learn more about the underserved market opportunity, download Financial Health Network’s 2017 Financially Underserved Market Size Study. How did financially underserved consumers borrow, spend, save, and plan in 2016? From the increased prevalence of...

Financially underserved consumers spend $173 billion annually to manage their day-to-day financial lives — including $97 billion on short-term credit products. How can lending solutions build brand loyalty that grows with borrowers’ financial health? To learn more about credit and the underserved market opportunity, download Financial Health Network’s 2017 Financially Underserved Market Size Study. This fall, the...

Money20/20 is the world’s largest marketplace for ideas, connections and deals in Payments and Financial Services. It’s where leaders — representing every sector of the industry — come to seize new business opportunities, strengthen partnerships and discover the latest disruptions. With 11,000+ attendees — including more than 1,700 CEOs and Presidents from a whopping 4,500 companies and 85 countries — Money20/20 brings together...

Each autumn, the financial services industry gears up for Money20/20. As one of the largest conferences for payments and financial services innovation in the world, the event represents a major opportunity for both incumbents and innovators to showcase their work. For the past two years, Financial Health Network has sponsored a scholarship contest — made possible by...

By The Financial Panther I like to think that I’m pretty financially healthy. At 30 years old, I’m in a fairly unique position. I’m currently debt free after paying off nearly six figures worth of student loans in just a few years. I’ve got a sizable emergency fund that should cover me in the event...

By Donna Freedman (FinCon and the Center for Financial Services Innovation are sponsoring a writing contest: “In 500 words, explain what financial health means to you.” Here are my thoughts.) My journey to financial health was entirely roundabout, and I didn’t get there until middle age. Financial survival, not financial health, was the focus of...

By Lindsey B. Goodwin In 2013, a year when our family’s combined income put us in the top 5% of earners constituting America’s wealthy class, we found ourselves strapped for cash and debt-ridden. I had no idea that we were even considered more than middle class, as we outspent what we made each month and...

By Jennifer Tescher, CEO of Financial Health Network Whether they yet realize it or not, banks and other financial services companies are in the financial health business. That means they are in business to help their customers develop a strong day-to-day financial system that makes them resilient in the face of challenges and enables them...

By Julie Rains This article is inspired by Financial Health Matters Day (#FinHealthMatters). This article may contain affiliate links; there’s a possibility I could earn income when you click through one of these links and sign up for an account, make a purchase, etc. This article is written for entertainment purposes only and should not...

By Financial Health Network Hamed Shahbazi is the Founder and CEO of Tio Networks, a multi-channel payment solution provider specializing in bill payment services and other financial services through a variety of automated self-serve, retail point-of-sale, mobile and web-based methodologies processing approximately 50M transactions worth roughly $6 billion in payments annually in the United States....

By Amy Blacklock Consumer debt and I had a thing. We started out on friendly terms. Early in our hookup, the fondness grew between us. Things got ugly a few years in. You see, I kept believing I could handle the love affair. I probably could have, except I became too dependent on the relationship....

By Sarah Parker, Director and Insurance Working Group Lead, Financial Health Network Navigating the hype cycle of the insurtech boom can be a challenge for any financial services veteran. To help us sort it out, I sat down with Wayne Allen, the COO of Insurance Thought Leadership. As an attorney, Wayne has advised entrepreneurs and...

By Andrew Wang, Runnymede Capital Management We all “get” physical health. There are 15 gyms within a 2-mile radius of my house. Even the bag of corn chips on my desk is trying to convince me that it’s healthy — natural, organic, non-GMO. But we know better. We know that we need to exercise regularly and should...

By Natalia Joaquin, Neighborhood Trust Financial Partners #FinHealthMatters to Latino Families Like Mine On this #FinHealthMatters Day, I don’t need this astonishing recent report to understand that white households have six times the wealth of Latino families, or that white wealth is growing 20% faster than for Latinos. I saw it for myself when I was...

By Dr. Barbara O’Neill In 1999, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. After 10 months of treatment, my doctor described my physical health status as NED, which is doctor-speak for No Evidence of Disease. The same acronym can be applied to financial health: No Evidence of Distress. Financially healthy people with financial well-being are comfortable...

By Femme Frugality A lot of times when we write about money, we pretend that our income will look like this: But just as the aging process doesn’t always go the way we want it to, studies show that for most American families, income doesn’t go up in a straight line at a 40 degree...

By Theresa Schmall, Financial Health Network June 27, 2017 was the second annual #FinHealthMatters Day. On this day more than 900 individuals created nearly 10 million Twitter impressions explaining why financial health matters. This message is particularly important because 57% of Americans — approximately 138 million adults — are struggling financially. At Financial Health Network, we see the struggle...

By Thea Garon, Financial Health Network As the healthcare debate rages on in America, it’s not often that we stop to consider the successes of our nation’s healthcare system. But as financial service providers respond to the disruptive force of technology and the changing nature of consumer demands, they would be wise to consider how...

An EMERGE Conference Interview with Brian Costello By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Brian Costello is the Chief Information Security Officer at Envestnet. Brian is helping Envestnet | Yodlee create a more financially informed generation and ultimately a stronger global economy by supporting the consumers’ right to access financial solutions that allow them to improve...

By Rachel Schneider, Financial Health Network When Jonathan Morduch and I started working with the families associated with the US Financial Diaries research — featured in our recently released book, The Financial Diaries — we thought it might be hard to get people to share the intimate details of their financial lives with us. After all, how many of...

By Brenton Peck, Financial Health Network “Dear Employer, I need help.” I’ve been taking small steps to get ahead — picking up a few extra hours at work, saving diligently in my bank account, and working to rebuild my credit score. But this month, my son had an ER visit, which I thought was covered under his father’s...

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Keynote Speaker Nandita Bakhshi Read about “Culture at the Core” session at the EMERGE Consumer Financial Health Forum. Learn More and Register Today >> Nandita Bakhshi is President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of the West and co-CEO of BNP Paribas USA Inc. She is responsible for the strategic...

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker Lynnette Khalfani-Cox By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Lynnette Khalfani-Cox We sat down with Lynnette Khalfani-Cox, New York Times best-selling author and CEO/Co-Founder of AskTheMoneyCoach.com, for a candid conversation about why providers should know their customers’ unique financial stories, what works to inspire consumers to act, and the importance...

By Rachel Schneider, Financial Health Network At the dawn of the industrial revolution, manufacturing jobs were terrible jobs. Conditions were dangerous; hours were far, far too long. But over time, the nature of the work changed. Whether the changes were the result of unionization, regulation or just good business, what history reminds us is that...

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker Brett King By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Brett King We sat down with Brett King, futurist, innovator, radio host, founder of a neo-bank, to hear how he’s thinking about the future — and what the threats and opportunities are to banks, credit unions, and technology companies. You sit in a...

An EMERGE Pre-Conference Interview with Speaker David Hoke By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network Read about “From the Corner Office to the Cubicle: Financial Health at Work,” session at the EMERGE Consumer Financial Health Forum. Learn More and Register Today >> David Hoke is Sr. Director of Health & Well-Being at Walmart. What is it — exactly — that...

By Elizabeth Vivirito, Financial Health Network For years, the global and United States financial inclusion communities have worked in parallel, employing slightly different strategies and metrics of success in their aim to build markets that include all people — especially the most vulnerable. More recently the global financial inclusion sector has been focusing on both education about...

By Shannon Austin, Financial Health Network When you think of Google, you’re probably thinking search. Synonymous with how we call tissues by the brand name “Kleenex,” the phrase “Google it” is, of course, how we all associate finding things. In that way, “Googling it” has taken the place of many practices the over-40 set grew...

By Jennifer Tescher, President & CEO, Financial Health Network When I launched the Financial Health Network nearly 13 years ago, no one knew who we were, and virtually no one knew what it meant to be underbanked. All I knew was that I was supposed to figure out how technological changes in financial services could...

By Sarah Parker, Financial Health Network Blog originally published on February 2, 2016 The better a financial services provider understands its customers, the better it can serve them. With Big Data, providers can increase customer loyalty and gain market share by better serving its customers. Big Data here is defined as the collection and use...

By Aliza Gutman, Financial Health Network There’s no arguing that fintech has tremendous potential as a delivery channel for high-quality products and services to help consumers improve their financial health. Yet many fintech tools are still not designed with the needs of underserved consumers in mind. In our just-published brief, we share what we learned...

By Rachel Schneider & Jennifer Tescher, Financial Health Network Sometimes, complex problems demand simple solutions. According to Financial Health Network’s research, 57% of Americans are financially unhealthy. The Pew Charitable Trust found that over 70% of Americans are income limited, savings constrained or debt challenged, and a third of Americans experience two or even three...

By Financial Health Network Underserved Consumers spent $141 billion in 2015 to borrow, spend, save, and plan their financial lives. What products do they use to meet their needs, and where are the opportunities for innovation? American consumers have never had more choices when it comes to financial products. But having choices doesn’t always mean...

By Tyler Griffin, Financial Health Network This post is a follow-on to our recently released FinLab Snapshot, a report in which we identified industry insights, trends and analyses based on FinLab’s 356 applicants in 2016. In this post, we’ll share more about something we called out as one of the “trends on the horizon” we...

By Katherine J. Flocken Financial Health Startups Win Their Way to Money20/20 As autumn arrives, financial services innovators know it is almost time for Money20/20 — one of the largest conferences for payments and financial services innovation in the world. It is a major event for those in, or trying to break into, the financial services industry....

By Asad Ramzanali & Josh Sledge, Financial Health Network This shouldn’t come as a surprise to most of you reading this post, but it is worth stating: Fintech has a diversity problem. Specific numbers for diversity in fintech are hard to nail down. But we do know that both technology and finance have a significant...

By Tyler Griffin I think one of the most interesting tensions in our world of fintech exists between building a product that our customers love and building a product that is good for our customers. Much ink has been spilled about the tension between building a successful business and doing good; that is well trod...

By Steven M. Hughes LET’S REWIND. I’m a freshman in college, hungry for food and new experiences as I’m walking across the library bridge. From one end to the other are tables filled with coupons for free pizza, subs and credit cards (one of these things are not like the others). Shortly after all the...

By Aja McClahanan I’m a child of the 80s and came of age in the 90s. If you don’t know much about that time period, I’ll sum it up for you: the rise pop culture consumerism. Rappers, ball players and other larger-than-life personalities defined success for us in terms of the “bling.” The more diamond-encrusted...

By Stephanie Jones Have you ever avoided going to the doctor about an ache or pain simply because you were afraid of what the diagnosis might be? That happens with finances too. In fact, that was totally me three years ago. While my husband was in law school, I knew our debt was mounting, but...

By Bobbi Dempsey Growing up in severe poverty, smart financial skills aren’t something you learn. I say that from personal experience. Survival is the main goal, and you do anything necessary just to get your hands on enough food to make it through the day. You have a very negative view of — and relationship with — money, as...

By Talaat & Tai McNeely What does financial health mean to me? If only I were presented with that question eighteen years ago when I was a young man entering the United States Army, maybe I wouldn’t have made some of the mistakes I have made in the area of my finances. Hopefully, someone would...

By Joshua Sledge, Director, Financial Health Network After a relaxing Labor Day weekend, I settled back into work last Tuesday morning by scanning for industry news. Everywhere I looked — my Twitter feed, the company Slack channel, Google News — I kept seeing the same article pop up with a thought-provoking headline: “Sex ed is required. Why isn’t financial...

By Tai Stewart Ever since I can remember, my dad was always the financial manager in our household. He knew how to support 8 kids and a wife on less than $40,000, and we didn’t lack any basic necessities. As the eldest child, I was the recipient of most of the financial lessons since I...

How to Value the True Cost of a Loan How should we measure the true value of a loan on consumers’ lives? Lower blood pressure, for the anxiety and stress saved? The dollar amount of an additional payday, because someone could afford to repair the car and get to work? The quality of life achieved...

By Amanda K. Lettmann Disability comes quickly and very unexpectedly. One moment you are healthy, another moment you are having open heart surgery — at least that’s what happened to me. In the early 1990’s, I learned dearly the importance of having sound financial health. At the time I was 29, an avid runner, cyclist, and fitness...

All children are “our” children. Financial shocks affect millions of children’s lives. Over 48 million children live in financially struggling households; 38% of these families don’t have savings habits. Financial Health Network has been dedicated to raising awareness around America’s children, publishing research to support the efforts. And this summer, we invited Bob Putnam, author...

By Jeffrey Riecke, Communications Specialist, CFI This morning I had the luxury of splitting an Uber with my girlfriend for our to-work transportation. Neither she nor I are affluent by United States standards, but I would say we’re relatively financially healthy. Most months, our expenses like rent, food, medical bills, and student loans are low...

By Eric Patrick, BlackMarketExchange Spring 2011. That’s when I graduated from Howard University’s pharmacy school. I felt like I hit the lotto. No more waiting on refund checks, which at the time felt like a million dollars. I was now going to be a licensed pharmacist with a paycheck that was sure to prevent me...

By Nancy Castillo This Spring, Financial Health Networker Nancy Castillo spent 12 weeks at Oportun’s headquarters in Redwood City, CA. Castillo was there as part of a Fellowship program offered by Financial Health Network to its staff, the goal of which was twofold: to provide professional development and exposure to an emerging Financial Health Network...

By Financial Health Network Consulting Putting Low-Income Consumers First With the Help of Financial Health Network’s Knowledge More than 68 million low-income Americans don’t get the financial services they need. It’s this market gap that prompted the Opportunity Finance Network (OFN), a network of community development financial institutions to turn to the Center for Financial...

By Toni Husbands, Debt Free Divas As a mother of two very young children, staying healthy is a priority because I want to remain active with them as we all grow older. Helping my children develop healthy lifestyle habits is important so hopefully one day they can pass that on to my grandchildren. I didn’t...

By Ryan Guida, CashMoneyLife We all have financial goals in our lives. Mine have changed through the years, but I can still remember the big ones. Paying off all consumer debt. Getting married. Buying a home. Becoming a father. These were all huge financial milestones. But perhaps the biggest financial leap of faith I ever...

In July our colleagues at Fifth Third Bank shared several examples of how Financial Health Network has affected that organization’s thinking. “We printed out the image of small-dollar credit consumers, taping it by our desks to remind us every day about the people we were doing our work for.” Thank you, Tom, Mark, and Darren,...

By Financial Health Network Consulting A Financial Inclusion Forum Goes Further Nothing makes the consumer experience resonate more than living it first-hand. The Financial Health Network understands this, which is why it created the Consumer Financial Experience (FinX) to offer an in-the-field opportunity that puts participants in consumers’ shoes and has them tackle the challenges...

By Grayson Bell, Debt Roundup Did you know 57% of Americans are struggling financially? Isn’t that a crazy number? What if I pull out percentages and go with about 138 million people. Yes that is MILLION! This information is according to Center for Financial Services Innovation’s Consumer Financial Health Study. While I hate to see...

By Nick True, True Tightwad So, I have a confession to make. I ruined my honeymoon. This is hard to admit since most people don’t know this (not even my mom, who’s reading this for the first time). It’s hard because this story has the potential to paint me in an extremely negative light. But...

The following is a transcript from Jennifer Tescher’s Big Idea at the EMERGE 2016 Forum in New Orleans. I don’t know about you, but as a frequent flyer, those announcements when you get on the airplane about “put on your seatbelt”, or “no smoking in the lavatory”, those just sort of wash over me at...

By Financial Health Network Consulting From Check Cashing to Credit-Building Nix Neighborhood Lending has come a long way since it opened fifty years ago as a check cashing business inside a Los Angeles grocery store. In 2007, after the company was bought by Kinecta Federal Credit Union, Nix began shifting its business away from simply...

By Abigail Perry, I Pick Up Pennies FinCon and Center for Financial Services Innovation partnered up for a contest to have bloggers explain what financial health means to them. Here’s my take on the subject. Most people think of financial health as a state of being. To me, it’s about a conscious journey toward stability....

How a rejection letter and a plate of red velvet cupcakes led me to understanding how #FinHealthMatters. By Betsy Mikel Thank you for your interest in Northwestern University. After careful consideration of your application, I am sorry to inform you we are unable to offer you a place in the class of 2008.* The 18-year-old me...

What financial providers need to know about young adults. What if we reached young people at the moment they’re primed to to absorb financial education — a moment like their first paycheck? What if we used that moment to capture people’s attention, and we allow them to open that account to help get started? MyPath, a San...

By Elizabeth Vivirito, Managing Director, Financial Health Network This month we’re introducing a series called “Moments of Impact.” At Financial Health Network we work hard to design our events, content, and experiences with impact at the center of our work. While we have seen notable strides from our members and in the marketplace, we recognize...

By Mel Bondar, brokeGIRLrich I am the world’s laziest runner. I kind of hate it. Sometimes it’s my legs that hate it. Sometimes it’s my lungs. Most of the time though, it’s my mind. My mind really hates running. My mind wants to be at home binge watching Pretty Little Liars and eating chocolate chip...

In case you missed it, June 29 was the first-ever #FinHealthMatters Day. You might be wondering what that’s all about, maybe even why you should care. In a nutshell, it’s this: 57% of Americans — approximately 138 million adults — are struggling financially. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. The struggling majority aren’t who you think: While it’s...

By Thea Garon, Senior Manager, Financial Health Network Financial Health Network is pleased to announce the launch of the Financial Health Beta Project, an initiative designed to help providers measure and improve their customers’ financial health. From June to December 2016, participating companies will use Financial Health Network’s 8 financial health indicators to measure and...

By Rachel Schneider Senior Vice President, Financial Health Network Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its long-awaited proposed rules about payday lending. The CFPB is to be applauded for wading into the near-impossible task of trying to regulate this controversial product without causing harm to the millions of people who rely on...

By Sohrab Kohli, Senior Associate, Financial Health Network Thursday in Kansas City, Missouri, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will be issuing a proposed rule on payday loans and other small-dollar loan products. This rule will likely introduce protections that would curb consumer harm and have other broad implications for much of the small-dollar credit...

By Sarah Parker, Director, Financial Health Network Originally published on Financial Health Network’s website on February 2, 2016 The better a financial services provider understands its customers, the better it can serve them. With Big Data, providers can increase customer loyalty and gain market share by better serving its customers. Big Data here is defined...

By Josh Sledge, Director, Financial Health Network This blog originally appeared on Nextbillion.net on November 11, 2015. When we traditionally think of the industries that can help promote successful outcomes for children, the financial services industry doesn’t generally make the list. However, financial service providers can actually play an important and constructive role in children’s...