The Real Reason The Poor Go Without Bank Accounts

There's no reason to pay some megacorporation to treat you impersonally.

I'm much like the author. I bank electronically. I actually just visited a physical branch today for the first time in months because I had a big wad of cash to deposit, and mobile phone deposit technology hasn't quite reached the level of sophistication needed to handle cash yet.

My relationship with my bank is generally simple. They store my money, and occasionally pay it out or receive more. This is almost all automatic. The one thing they do that might actually involve some effort is the bill pay service, where they will actually mail a physical check in some cases. But most of the payees I have set up in their system have electronic arrangements.

When I need further service, they're good about it. They answer their phones quickly, they can overnight a cashier's check for a reasonable fee on the rare occasions I need something like that, and they'll call me if something looks like fraudulent activity. But this comes up once a year or less.

For the most part, they're basically another appliance for me. We have defined roles and we stick to them. I keep a generous pad of extra cash in the account, never overdraw, never need anything weird, and in exchange, they charge me no fees, even pay me (extremely nominal) interest, and don't hassle me.

This works great if you have the responsibility and cash to do it, but it would fall apart if I didn't. If I started cashing bad checks and overdrafting, I'd get hit with fees up the wazoo and I'd pretty much have to leave. Features that are an extreme convenience to me now, like totally automatic bill pay, would become a huge liability.

I looked at these places and thought that they offered less service. They don't even keep your money for you, after all! And they charge you for the privilege! But, to their customers, they offer more service. They offer more control over their customers' money. They offer more flexibility and less punishment when bending or breaking the rules.

It's a good lesson in not just assuming people are dumb or ignorant. Sure, a lot of people are, but when behavior is this common, there's usually a good, rational reason behind it.

I always thought that if I was poor, I'd still be "smart enough" to bank properly with whatever money I had. Now, I wonder if that really would be "smart".

I also wonder about financial regulation. I generally favor a "better safe than sorry" approach there, but this might illustrate a downside of that. We've all heard about the trouble that non-traditional companies have had with such regulations, whether it's companies like Paypal, or Simple, or Bitcoin-related businesses. They try to get around the regulations in various ways. Here, RiteCheck is getting around banking regulations by simply not being a bank. I have to wonder if they could offer better service and some of the sort of safety and savings ability we associate with normal banking if it were less difficult for RiteCheck to offer something like an actual bank account.

Birthday cards, get well soon cards, calling the client and asking how they are, helping them with last minute account stuff (like making their visa have a higher cap so that cruise trip can be insured).

I think a lot of banking should be like this. I doubt it ever could be, as most banks have very few people, but specialized areas, like this rite-aid, or some wealth banking, have the time to dedicate to these people.

Treating people like people, whether it is restaurants, or banking, or anything, makes a business less like a service and more like an experience. It should be something a lot of startup companies on hn should look into.