About 10 percent of Texans don’t use a bank, going through life without a checking or savings account. University of Pennsylvania professor Lisa Servon joins us to talk about why people choose to go without a bank – and about what banks can do to earn their business. She writes about the topic in “The Unbanking of America: How the New Middle Class Survives” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).
Lisa Servon on …
… why some people prefer check cashiers:
“The inside of a check cashing store looks like a McDonald’s. It’s got a huge board spanning the teller windows that tells you exactly what you’re paying for every service, and it tells you what services you can get … You walk into a bank and there’s very little signage that tells you what you’re paying, what the terms are, what’s even offered. When I think about people who may be new to this country or didn’t grow up going to a bank like I did, it can be a very off-putting, anxious experience.”
