The CFE Fund supports local Bank On coalitions through best practices found in our Bank On Coalition Playbook. Chapters cover a range of topics; newly-released chapters include best practices for Programmatic Banking Access Integration, a handout for financial institutions on the benefits of Bank On National Account Certification, guidelines for Launching or Relaunching a Coalition, local Strategies for Navigating Financial Institution Partnerships and Account Certification, a Bank On Coalition Logic Model, a guide for using local Bank On data from the Bank On Data Pilot, and an annotated version of the 2019-2020 Bank On National Account Standards.
Author: Katie Plat
Bank On Coalition Financial Institution Partnerships: Statement of Principles
In addition to offering standardized and robust National Account Standards upon which coalitions and their financial institution partners may rely, the CFE Fund has worked with its National Advisory Board to develop model best practices for defining their successful relationship. The Statement of Financial Institution Partnership Principles provide a template to harmonize goals and guide partnerships with shared expectations.
Consumer Financial Protection Initiative: Request for Letters of Interest
With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the CFE Fund seeks to identify mayoral or county administrations interested in partnering to build out a consumer financial protection division within their local government, working to create a fairer consumer financial marketplace. During this exploratory phase, the CFE Fund requests an initial Letter of Interest from interested mayoral or county administrations and will then identify 3-5 partners with whom to work to further develop this opportunity for a subsequent implementation phase. Read FAQs about the project here; apply through our online grant portal.
Supervitamin Quarterly, Issue 9
This issue, Issue 9, includes updates on the Financial Empowerment Center initiative; an overview of the recent Summer Jobs Connect gathering in Chicago; and news and resources from the Bank On initiative. It also includes an update on the Next Generation Municipal Financial Empowerment Awards, including a Guest Column from our partner in New Haven; a new section that highlights news and updates from the CFE Coalition; and CFE Fund updates on our Board and new website.
CFE Fund Comment Letter on Evidence-Based Policy
The CFE Fund submitted a Comment Letter to the US Bureau of the Census Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking. The letter focused on strategies to increase the availability and use of government data to build evidence for programs and policies, while protecting privacy and confidentiality—drawing from the CFE Fund’s experience working with local governments across the country. Evidence of effectiveness is critical to local governments as they allocate limited resources, are accountable to residents for quality services, and seek program sustainability across administration changes. Based on programmatic experience from the Financial Empowerment Center initiative, the CFE Fund offers a number of recommendations to the Commission. These include: encourage federally funded programs, including block grants, to bake evaluation into program design; support data linkage efforts to give evaluators access to administrative data while ensuring privacy; and synchronize federal program data structures so agencies with multiple programs can collect compatible data, ideally in the same database.
CFE Coalition CFPB Comment Letter on Payday Loans
The 15-member CFE Coalition has weighed in on key federal policy issues since its founding in 2008.
In this 2016 letter, the Coalition highlights how programmatic experience has shown members the devastating impacts that predatory lending can have on residents. The Coalition applauds the Bureau’s efforts to create strong national regulations to safeguard consumers from abusive and costly practices in the short-term lending market that trap them in cycles of debt, and offers a number of recommendations. These include: the proposed full payment test should include standardized, transparent methods for estimating basic living expenses; access to covered short-term loans should be limited to four per 12 month period under the alternative requirements; the CFPB should implement a reasonable maximum payment-to-income ratio as an alternative to the full payment test to enable financial institutions to offer lower-cost, sustainable installment loans; lenders should be required to meet a clearly defined maximum annual portfolio default rate on all covered loan sequences, regardless of whether they use the full payment test or approved alternatives; and lenders should be required to contribute a percentage of revenue from all covered loans to a fund that supports nonprofit financial counseling.
Supervitamin Quarterly, Issue 8
This issue, Issue 8, provides an update on the Next Generation Municipal Financial Empowerment awards; a brief on financial empowerment’s role in positive youth development from our Summer Jobs Connect initiative; and an announcement of a Request for Expressions of Interest for organizations to serve as a long-term partner to evaluate financial institution products for Bank On National Account Standards consistency. The issue also includes an update on the CFE Fund’s technical assistance work, the CFE Coalition’s 2016 Policy Agenda; and a guest column from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing Counseling, Sarah Gerecke.
The Financial Empowerment Center Movement
The CFE Fund’s Financial Empowerment Center initiative provides professional, one-on-one, municipally-led free financial counseling in cities across the country. In this video, FEC counselors talk about core tenets of the model and the importance of municipal financial counseling in their city.
Summer Jobs Connect Youth Account Priorities
The Summer Jobs Connect initiative, generously supported by Citi Foundation, leverages the scale and infrastructure of Summer Youth Employment Programs to offer banking access and other financial empowerment opportunities, helping to transform a summer job into an on-ramp to the financial mainstream.
These Summer Jobs Connect Youth Account Priorities outline the features that Summer Jobs Connect city partners prioritized in transactional accounts for participants. Key features include no required starting balance (the deposit requirement was suspended until the first paycheck); no monthly fees; and noncustodial accounts, accounts that are available for youth under 18 without requiring an adult “custodian” to cosign or guarantee the account.
Bank On National Account Standards (2015- 2016)
The Bank On National Account Standards provide guidelines on over 25 product features that local Bank On coalitions should seek in their financial institution partnerships and that financial institutions should consider when developing basic transaction accounts. The guidelines include both core and recommended features, and focus on safety, cost, accessibility, and functionality.