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RE: Deeper Dives: Living la Vida Unbanked in the World of Digital Currencies
It's ironic that people in Kenya have a much more robust "unbanked" system with mPesa. Anyone with a mobile phone can save, send, lend and spend money with mPesa. I'm surprised no one has worked out a similar system in the States.
@wheatdogg thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate it.
One I got past the hurdles, I found myself thinking about this quite a bit. The hard truth is I believe to a large degree it's about control. Banks can make easy money from fees without providing a single benefit in exchange , simply because fiat currency is a monopoly. Interestingly, it was not always so in the US and I am currently writing a piece about that very topic.
As I allude to in the article, once people begin to experience and become comfortable with cryptocurrency, and the true economic freedom and liberty it provides to an individual, I think the golden age of unbanking will happen very, very quickly. We are just one economic disaster away from that.
I'm old enough to remember when banks were a public service. You could open a savings passbook account with only $5 and the bank would maintain that account almost forever, even if it only had $5 in it. Plus, they paid more than 5% interest on the balance. My folks gave me an allowance, and opened a trust account for me at the local savings bank. They encouraged me to save my money, and by high school I had several hundred dollars there earning 5.75% interest.
But all that changed with the end of banking regulations, and stodgy old banks like mine decided they were not a public service but a way to make bankers very rich. Interest rates dropped to nothing, minimum balances were imposed, fees for everything were created, and formerly conservative bankers risked their depositors' funds on subprime mortgage instruments. So, I can understand why unbanked people now want to avoid banks, because I don't trust them either.