Life on the edges of America’s financial mainstream

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21571882-life-edges-americas-financial-mainstream-margin-calls

One of the most interesting and surprising facts of this whole article is that 1 in 12 American house holds (or 17 million people) within the United States do not bank. A good majority but not all of the 17 million includes the poor. The people who are "unbanked" currently have no alternative to making transactions besides using cash. This is interesting because in the article that I had posted last week was about how we will soon be entering into a cashless society. With 17 million people not banking what alternatives are they going to have to using cash if they are not with a bank? Walmart and American Express have gotten together and created the Bluebird card. It pretty much is a prepaid card that has a lot of the same features of credit cards provided by banks. You can even deposit a check from your smartphone onto the card. Many of these prepaid cards are going to be what arise with a cashless society and are going to be essential to the people who do not bank, especially the poor. Especially when businesses begin to give incentives for not using cash. The big issue that is highlighted in this article are the big fees that are going to come with these prepaid cards and the bigger fees that come from taking out loans from a payday source. While banks hesitate to offer more basic accounts to those who do not bank (due to the lack of profit and high risk) there is and will continue to be a high demand for these more basic accounts especially as we more toward a more cashless society.