<\/p>\n
September 23, 2013\u00a0by Ellen Brown<\/p>\n
The Unbanked and Underbanked: A Massive Untapped Market<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The \u201cunbanked\u201d are not a small segment of the population.\u00a0In a 2011 survey<\/a>, the unbanked and underbanked included about one in four households.\u00a0 Without access to conventional financial services, people turn to an expensive alternative banking market of bill-pay, prepaid debit cards, check cashing services, and payday loans.\u00a0 They pay excessive fees and are susceptible to high-cost predatory lenders.<\/p>\n Globally, postal banks are major contributors to financial inclusion. Catering to this underserved population is a revenue-generator for the post office while saving the underbanked large sums in fees. Worldwide,\u00a0according to the Universal Postal Union<\/a>, 1 billion people now use the postal sector for savings and deposit accounts, and more than 1.5 billion take advantage of basic transactional services through the post.\u00a0According to a Discussion Paper<\/a>\u00a0of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs:<\/p>\n The essential characteristic distinguishing postal financial services from the private banking sector is the obligation and capacity of the postal system to serve the entire spectrum of the national population, unlike conventional private banks which allocate their institutional resources to service the sectors of the population they deem most profitable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Expanding to include postal financial services has been crucial in many countries to maintaining the profitability of their postal network.\u00a0 Maintaining post offices in some rural or low-income areas can be a losing proposition, so the postal service often cross-subsidizes with other activities to maintain its universal network.\u00a0 Public postal banks are profitable because their market is large and their costs are low.\u00a0 The infrastructure is already built and available, advertising costs are minimal, and government-owned banks do not reward their management with extravagant bonuses or commissions that drain profits away.\u00a0 Profits return to the government and the people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")
<\/a>