View or download a PDF of the letter here

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF) sent a letter to the Treasury Department outlining principles, scope, and direction for the department’s development of a financial inclusion strategy.  Developing a financial inclusion strategy is long-overdue and a necessary step to understand and begin to address the contributions of inequitable access to financial products and services for disadvantaged communities to the persistent racial economic inequality in the United States. Improving financial inclusion benefits underserved households and communities, strengthens their economic security and resilience, promotes broad-based economic growth, and reduces economic inequality. The barriers to financial inclusion mean that lower-income families have more difficulty accessing needed financial services, typically pay more, and often receive lower-quality products.

AFREF supports the effort to develop and implement a financial inclusion strategy to reduce the inequitable access to financial products as an important component of addressing the yawning racial economic divide. The letter addresses the components that define the contours and scope of financial inclusion, the kinds of metrics necessary to fully evaluate financial inclusion, and makes recommendations to further a financial inclusion strategy.