New york postoffice. Picture by John Donges.

The U.S. postoffice on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. is a bastion on its Harlem block. Entrenched beside a pawnshop, a business that is cash-for-gold and a commercial bank numerous when you look at the neighbor hood aren’t able to utilize, the center is actually a fortress. Detailed with hefty stone walls, metal screens, vaults, ATMs, and armored vehicles, the premises evoke one word: safety. They also suggest a second word: Bank if you’ve followed recent news.

Post workplaces are designed like banking institutions.

And that is just one single reasons why postal banking, a hot concept in financial policy debates, is viable.

real and functional structures already occur that may assist USPS offer basic monetary solutions: prepaid debit cards, mobile deals, brand new check cashing solutions, cost savings reports, and also easy, small-dollar loans.

“There’s a post workplace every five obstructs in Manhattan—there’s accessibility in most zip code,” explained Frankie Wright, 32, a USPS Supervisor of Customer Services in East Harlem. “On a level that is operational we’re already capable.”

The theory, popularized by journalist David Dayen and legislation teacher Mehrsa Baradaran, would produce general general public selection for credit which help insulate Main Street within the most likely occasion of some other crisis that is financial.

For instance, a debtor without use of a commercial bank might typically accept a tiny loan at an unreasonably high rate of interest from a lender that is payday. Read more →