Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion

The Mapping Financial Opportunity (#MapFinOpp) project was designed to investigate financial inclusion and health from a system perspective. In particular, the project aimed to understand variations in communities’ financial services, whether variations were based on communities’ racial and economic compositions, and whether these variations within communities were associated with households’ financial health. In addition, because the safety and affordability of financial products and services also matter, Mapping Financial Opportunity conducted surveys with random samples of banks, credit unions, and payday lenders to gain an understanding of how much consumers could expect to pay for entry-level products from the financial services within their communities. That is, just because a person has a bank in their community does not mean they can afford the minimum opening deposit or monthly maintenance fees. Thus, the project had four primary components, each relying on slightly different data: 

• Interactive, web-based platform¹;
• Community analyses;
• Household analyses; and
• Product surveys.

This report provides a summary of the project’s main findings in each of these four components, as well as key dissemination activities and plans for next steps.

¹Please visit the website here: https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/mapping-financial-opportunity/