The pandemic has shown the challenges many low-income households face from not having banking relationships, including delays in receiving critical funds, costs for using alternative services and struggles navigating the Paycheck Protection Program.
The city of Boston has added another partner to its initiative to provide checking accounts to the city’s unbanked and underbanked residents.
The coronavirus crisis shows the need for more banks and credit unions to help poor and working-class Massachusetts residents develop banking relationships, both bankers and advocates say.
One third of Bostonians live outside the traditional financial system, cutting them off from crucial financial tools like credit cards and savings accounts and helping to lock them out of economic mobility. To combat this Boston and Worcester, where numbers are similar, are partnering with financial institutions to offer checking accounts that are easier to access.
