Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation November 23, 2010 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In accordance with requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq.), the FDIC hereby gives notice that it is submitting to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a request for OMB review and approval of revisions to the survey collection instrument for its second National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households (``Household Survey''), currently approved under OMB Control No. 3064-0167, scheduled to be conducted in partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau as a supplement to its June 2011 Current Population Survey (``CPS''). The collection is a key component of the FDIC's efforts to comply with a Congressional mandate contained in section 7 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Reform Conforming Amendments Act of 2005 (``Reform Act'') (Pub. L. 109-173), which calls for the FDIC to conduct ongoing surveys ``on efforts by insured depository institutions to bring those individuals and families who have rarely, if ever, held a checking account, a savings account or other type of transaction or check cashing account at an insured depository institution (hereafter in this section referred to as the `unbanked') into the conventional finance system.'' Section 7 further instructs the FDIC to consider several factors in its conduct of the surveys, including: (1) ``What cultural, language and identification issues as well as transaction costs appear to most prevent `unbanked' individuals from establishing conventional accounts''; and (2) ``what is a fair estimate of the size and worth of the `unbanked' market in the United States.'' The household survey is designed to address these factors and provide a factual basis on the proportions of unbanked households. Such a factual basis is necessary to adequately assess banks' efforts to serve these households as required by the statutory mandate. To satisfy the Congressional mandate, the FDIC designed two complementary surveys: A survey of FDIC-insured depository institutions and a survey of households. The first survey of FDIC-insured depository institutions, aimed at collecting data on their efforts to serve underbanked, as well as unbanked, populations (underbanked populations include individuals who have an account with an insured depository but also rely on non-bank alternative financial service providers for transaction services or high cost credit products), was conducted in mid-2007, with the results released in February 2008. The first survey of unbanked and underbanked households was conducted in January 2009 as a CPS supplement and the results were released to the public in December 2009. The household survey sought to estimate the proportions of unbanked and underbanked households in the U.S. and to identify the factors that inhibit the participation of these households in the mainstream banking system. The results of these ongoing surveys will help policymakers and bankers understand the issues and challenges underserved households perceive when deciding how and where to conduct financial transactions.