Avoiding check cashing, payday loans and other high-cost services

United Way joins with the FDIC and other financial institutions and community-based, not-for-profit organizations as part of the Boston Alliance for Economic Inclusion.  BAEI developed a guide to respond to a growing reality - clients losing sleep over money problems. The guide, called "Understanding High-Cost Financial Services Providers and Mainstream Banking Alternatives,” is a 24 page quick reference guide that describes several of the most common high-cost financial products and the ways each of them can adversely impact people.  Through the following post, written by guest blogger Joanne Evans of the Winthrop Federal Credit Union, we are hoping to make it more widely available. 

Social service practitioners, health care professionals and other community-based case workers have a new resource to assist clients experiencing financial distress.  “Are Your Clients Losing Sleep Over Money Problems?; Understanding High-Cost Financial Services Providers and Mainstream Banking Alternatives” is a 24 page quick reference guide that describes several of the most common high-cost financial products and the ways each of them can adversely impact people.  “Losing Sleep” also identifies strategies and resources to break consumer reliance on high-cost products, and emphasizes how building a relationship with a mainstream bank or credit union can contribute to long-term self-sufficiency for individuals and families.

“Losing Sleep” was inspired by a broad range of case workers who, regardless of the specific focus of the services provided, were seeing their clients also beset by a serious financial distress.  The task of improving people’s health, housing conditions, or other basic necessities was reportedly complicated because the particular money-related issues.  The fact that these issues were not routinely well-understood by these practitioners is making it more difficult to locate appropriate resources. 

“Losing Sleep” can help community-based practitioners better understand common high-cost services such as check cashing, rent-to-own or subprime credit cards and auto financing.  By identify a variety of strategies and sources of help, the guide can connect clients to more specialized financial assistance and free practitioners to concentrate more attention on providing services within their area of professional expertise.

“Losing Sleep” was written by the Boston Alliance for Economic Inclusion, a public-private-nonprofit consortium.  Joanne M Evans, Director of Community and Business Development at the Winthrop Federal Credit Union, led the effort to research and write the guide.

You can download the guide below.