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Check Cashers Be Wary

March 26, 2010

A little Friday fun…. There was a man who owned some stores and did pretty well as a check casher. He was happy! But not for long. He got caught out by a fraudster. Into his store came a man. A nondescript someone who had a plan. His check was a fraud, low MICR Invalid [...]

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Money Service Licensing 101

March 22, 2010

Are you providing money services for your customers? Do you have a license for the regulated services you provide? Take a lesson from this NJ licensed money transmitter who was cashing checks on the side.  He charged 3% to cash checks; and then would take them to a licensed check cashing establishment; where he received [...]

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Does Slow-down of Latin Grocery Boom Affect Latino Banking Preference?

March 19, 2010

The Denver Post had an interesting article last week on the slow down of the Latino grocery market, “Latino-grocery boom likely to slow as second-generation shoppers surge”.  Latino grocers have been a traditional go-to location for the unbanked and underbanked; where they can get alternative financial services (check cashing, money transfer, etc), and in their [...]

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Underbanked still like traditional bill pay methods

February 18, 2010

Good news for retailers providing walk-in payment services!  Traditional bill payment methods are still the choice among the roughly 106 million underbanked.  According to a new study by Aite Group, 41% of unbanked / underbanked prefer to go to a retailer to pay their bills; while 45% use the mail.  The remainder use online services [...]

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Walmart adds check cashing in Connecticut

February 9, 2010

If you’re cashing checks in Connecticut, your enjoyment of tax season (lots of refund checks) just got cut short. Walmart announced on Feb 5 that they’ll be cashing checks at all 33 stores in the state.  As with virtually everything at Walmart, prices are tough to beat: 1% of face value for checks under $300 [...]

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Compliance Reporting in 2009 – SAR Activity

February 1, 2010

FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) released its latest SAR Activity Review – By the Numbers report last week.  Retailers offering financial services should be alert, as FinCEN says 27% of forms filed in the first six months of 2009 can be attributed to suspected fraud-related activities (check fraud, mortgage loan fraud, consumer loan fraud, wire [...]

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New! FDIC Report on Unbanked and Underbanked

December 5, 2009

The FDIC released a report documenting in incredible detail the underbanked and unbanked populations in the US.  I’ll do a series of articles on various aspects of the report, but here are a few teasers. . . Approximately 9 million households (7.7%) are unbanked (no bank relationship) and 21 million (17.9%) are underbanked (have a [...]

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Man bites Dog! Media article portrays check cashers as reasonable businesses

December 3, 2009

It’s not often one sees an newspaper op-ed piece extolling the virtues of check cashers, but here’s one by Lawrence Harmon in the Boston Globe.   Banking on the Unbanked, 12/1/09. I’ve only been around the industry for just over a year, but have grown accustomed to seeing the assumptions that check cashers fleece their customers [...]

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October Check Cashing Volume up 4% from 2008

November 23, 2009

Recession over? Perhaps not yet, but check cashing activity amongst the unbanked is showing signs of stabilizing, as the number of retail check cashing transactions in October 2009 increased 4% from October 2008. The average check amount was $449 in October, down 1% from the October ’08 figure of $455. Data have been compiled on [...]

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Payday Lenders: You’re not paranoid, Washington really is out to get you!

October 27, 2009

It was a busy, busy day Saturday morning, as speakers covered a number of regulatory and industry issues at the day 3 of the FiSCA conference in Colorado Springs on Oct 24.   The summaries below are really rough, but I’ll tighten numbers and add links to source materials as they become available. Coalition for [...]

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