Listen Live
97.9 The Box Featured Video
CLOSE

WASHINGTON — More than a million American households lost access to basic banking services like savings accounts last year, bank regulators say.

Those families are among 30 million households that have little or no access to such services, according to a survey released Wednesday by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Poor, minority and immigrant families are especially hard-hit.

In all, 25.6 percent of U.S. households either lack bank accounts or use payday loans, check-cashing services and other costly alternatives to traditional banks, according to the survey.

The report is part of an FDIC effort to bring the “unbanked” into the financial mainstream.

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said access to a bank account gives households “an important first step toward achieving financial security.” Vulnerable families need the ability to save for emergencies and borrow on affordable terms, she said.

Households are considered “unbanked” if they report that no member has a checking or savings account. “Underbanked” households have bank accounts but still rely on costly, lightly regulated services like payday loans, check-cashing services and pawn shops.

The survey found that black, Hispanic and native American families are more likely to fall into these categories. Seventy-one percent of unbanked households earn less than $30,000 a year.

The Census Bureau conducted the survey in January 2009 on behalf of the FDIC.

Of the 1.3 million households that stopped having bank accounts in 2008, more than 31 percent said they closed them because of overdraft fees, service charges or high minimum balance rules. A slightly larger group, 34.1  percent, said they did not have enough money to need accounts, the report says.

The survey also found:

• • 54 percent of black households, 44.5 percent of American Indian/Alaskan households and 43.3 percent of Hispanic households have limited access to banking.

• • Households in the South are more likely to be unbanked or underbanked.

• • Twenty-eight percent of households headed by unmarried people are underbanked. For households with married couples, the number is 15.4 percent