When asked whether he or anyone in his household has a bank account, Billy,'a twenty-four-year-old out-of-work father of two young daughters, quickly retorted:" We don't do banks." 2 A recent survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reveals that Billy is not alone-more than nine million American households are unbanked, meaning that they have no checking or savings account. For more than a decade, policy researchers and advocates have sought to increase the use of bank accounts by low-income and minority households, both by increasing demand through education and outreach and by encouraging banks to better tailor their products to the needs of low-income consumers. 4

Motivating this line of policy advocacy is the assumption that low-income families would be financially better off if they were" banked." And this assumption has good support: unbanked consumers spend hundreds of dollars a year conducting routine financial transactions. 5 However, this near singular focus on the banking status of households and its relation to poverty has prevented a