Treasury Calls for Financial ‘Inclusion’ of Homeless, Transgenders, Ex-Cons, Immigrants, Refugees, E

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Yessir, 'Equity' and 'DEI' is still alive and well and has been rebranded.

Treasury Calls for Financial ‘Inclusion’ of Homeless, Transgenders, Ex-Cons, Immigrants, Refugees, Etc.
Craig Bannister | November 4, 2024

The Treasury Department has put out its first-ever “National Strategy for Financial Inclusion in the United States” calling on financial institutions to “address disparities” by lowering their standards and amending their business practices.

The goal of the “national strategy” is to increase “inclusion” of so-called “underserved” groups, which it says financial institutions have historically excluded and discriminated against:

“This inaugural National Strategy for Financial Inclusion in the United States establishes a framework and set of priority objectives to facilitate consumers’ ability to equitably access safe and useful financial services to meet their financial needs and achieve their financial goals, thereby promoting an inclusive financial system that works to reduce rather than compound disparities.”

According to the report, the “historically marginalized and underserved communities” being denied access to financial products and services include:

“Those experiencing homelessness.”
“Immigrants and refugees.”
“Transgender and nonbinary consumers.”
“Justice-involved individuals.”
“Muslim and Arab Americans.”
“Black people and other communities of color.”
“Hispanic households.”
“Victims of crime and domestic violence survivors.”

The national strategy does not explain how financial institutions could viably provide financial products and services to people who are without a fixed address (homeless).

Likewise, it doesn’t provide any concrete suggestions about how to profitably provide financial products and services to immigrants and refugees (especially, if they’re in the U.S. illegally). It just says they should do it.

Providing more financial products and services to “justice-involved individuals” in the name of inclusion also seems a problematic business risk since, by government definition, “Justice-involved individuals”  individuals are:

“People who are now, or have spent time, in jails, youth correctional facilities, or prisons - are at higher risk for injury and death than the general public. They face disproportionate risk of violence, overdose, and suicide.”

The report accuses the financial industry of a variety of historical sins continuing to this day that it says are “designed” to be exclusionary, such as:

Exclusion from participation in the financial system and decades of disinvestment in communities of color.
Recent generations of Black people and other communities of color have been subject to redlining practices designed to prevent people of color from accessing mortgages.
Targeting with predatory or low-quality financial products, as was the case with subprime mortgage lending ahead of the 2008 financial crisis.
Exclusion from participation in the financial system and decades of disinvestment in communities of color have contributed to persistently lower financial resilience and disproportionately fewer wealth-building opportunities.
Historic exclusion, community distrust and population-specific barriers, including:
institutional risk management practices,
access to bank branch locations,
 access to broadband and digital technology, and
language access.
Restrictive methods used for verifying customer identity, which can limit access to accounts for certain consumers.
Inappropriate assessment of risk may have “de-risked” them. These communities include Muslim and Arab Americans and justice-involved individuals.
Differences in stock or business equity between Black and white Americans have contributed to the widening of the racial wealth gap.
Black and Hispanic consumers are more likely to be “credit invisible” or “unscorable” by traditional credit models because of the information currently collected in the consumer reporting system.
 
“Barriers to wealth-building opportunities coupled with different starting points in wealth have compounded over time,” the report says, laying blame squarely on financial institutions:
https://mrctv.org/blog/craig-bannister/treasury-calls-financial-inclusion-homeless-transgenders-ex-cons-immigrants

[Kamaji]

[The_Reader_David]

This could be turned into something positive if the way it's done makes it impossible to unbank people for their political views as well.  Sounds like an opportunity for some actual bipartisanship.