wadetandy in these comments posted a link to an FDIC survey which goes into the details of why 8% of US households don't have an account, and why others are 'un

wadetandy in these comments posted a link to an FDIC survey which goes into the details of why 8% of US households don't have an account, and why others are 'underbanked'; at https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf : > Similar proportions of previously banked (33.2 percent) and never-banked (32.8 percent) households report that they don’t have a bank account because they don’t have enough money for one; this was the most common reason given by both groups. The second most common reason was not needing or wanting an account, although a larger percentage of never-banked households (26.0 percent) cited this reason than did previously banked households (15.6 percent). This finding implies that households that have had a bank account in the past may place more value on a banking relationship than those that have not. > For nearly 10 percent (9.5 percent) of previously banked households, the main reason they do not currently have an account is that the bank closed their account. Another 5.5 percent of previously banked households cannot open an account because of identification (ID), credit, or banking history problems. This suggests that about 15 percent of previously banked households may not choose to be unbanked but face institutional barriers related to opening or maintaining an account. > High bank account fees or minimum balance requirements were the main obstacles to account ownership for slightly more than 5 percent of unbanked households. However, recently unbanked households were more likely than others to cite fees as an obstacle: more than one in ten (11.1 percent) households that had a bank account in the last year were currently unbanked because of high fees and balance requirements, compared to 6.0 percent of previously banked households that had an account over a year ago. ...