Use of Financial Services and the Poor

This paper was commissioned for Inclusion in Asset Building: Research and Policy Symposium, an event hosted in September 2000 by the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis. The paper presents results from an analysis using data from the 1998 Survey of Consumer Finances to explore several aspects of the financial relationships of low-income households. The analyses looked at an updated profile of low-income and poor households, their financial portfolios, their attachment to the mainstream financial sector, and their use of various types of financial institutions. The findings suggest ways to move low-income households into the financial mainstream and ways to make financial institutions more attractive to these low-income customers