Last tax season, a woman who came for tax preparation help at a Riverworks Development Corp. financial clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, told the volunteer helping her that she didn’t have a bank account. That meant she couldn’t receive her tax refund via direct deposit. The two talked about how it would be faster and easier for her to both make and receive payments and her money would be safer if she had an account.  

The volunteer at Riverworks, which is a member of Bank On Greater Milwaukee, pointed the client to a list of financial institutions that offered “Bank On” accounts, which are certified safe and affordable by the national nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment (CFE) Fund. Features such as debit card access and no overdraft fees are among the requirements for an account to be certified as meeting Bank On National Account Standards. 

The woman picked a bank and an account she was comfortable with, took a bus to the bank to set up the account, and returned to Riverworks to complete her tax preparation.  

“She was 40 years old and she had never had a bank account,” said Constance Alberts, program manager of Bank On Greater Milwaukee, a coalition with nearly 70 members.  

Now the woman had a routing number for her tax refund. She wouldn’t have to wait for a paper check or pay fees to get her money, Alberts said. “It’s encouraging, it’s liberating, and it lets people know that it’s never too late.”  

The importance of having a bank account 

Having a bank account helps people build a relationship with a bank. And a bank account leads to other benefits, such as the ability to save money, pay off debt, and have documentation of finances for potential lenders.  

Bank On Greater Milwaukee members serve clients including young people aging out of foster care, people who have been incarcerated, people with disabilities, and those who may not speak English as their first language. 

Bank On coalitions, whose members include banks, community organizations and local governments, have been working for almost 20 years to connect people without strong banking relationships to bank accounts. But how can they find out if people like the first-time account opener in Milwaukee are fully using and benefiting from their Bank On accounts?  

That’s where the Bank On National Data (BOND) Hub comes in. BOND Hub is a web-based national reporting platform for all financial institutions offering Bank On-certified accounts. Established by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the CFE Fund, BOND Hub collects data on 23 metrics related to account openings, usage and consistency, and online access.  

The impact of the Bank On Movement and BOND Hub

People without a bank or credit union account—that is, people who are “unbanked”—may not have their money protected by federal deposit insurance. They also might not be as likely to save as someone with a checking account.  

Establishing a checking account can make people more willing to open a savings account. They can set up automatic transfers from their checking accounts to the savings accounts and earn interest on that money, said Lisa Locke, lead relationship manager for BOND Hub at the St. Louis Fed.  

While an estimated 5.6 million households lacked a bank account in 2023, the rate of unbanked households has been cut nearly in half over the last decade, according to data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). 

BOND Hub reports show growth in Bank On-certified accounts. In 2019, reporting showed 2.6 million accounts open. Accounts had been opened in about 75 percent of all US zip codes. The latest report indicates that, as of December 2023, more than 11 million Bank On-certified accounts were open and active, and accounts had been opened in about 89 percent of zip codes nationwide.  

BOND Hub shows how customers are using and benefiting from accounts 

Data helps financial institutions refine best practices for the accounts, said David Rothstein, a senior principal at the CFE Fund. For example, if the closure rate for accounts is slightly higher for smaller banks than larger ones, the financial institutions can discuss why that might be and practices to help people get the most out of their Bank On accounts.  

“There’s not an exceedingly high level of competition between financial institutions with these accounts. No one financial institution can bank millions and millions of households who are unbanked and need the help,” Rothstein said. “So, the way in which this data [also] really helps is it allows financial institutions to kind of compare themselves to other financial institutions.” 

Among other benefits, the BOND Hub data show that people are benefiting from the market for Bank On accounts. The data also indicate that Bank On clients are adding to the customer bases of financial institutions that offer the accounts, said Alberts of Bank On Greater Milwaukee.  

“What financial institution doesn’t want to have a strong base of people that they serve?” she said.  

Partnering to set standards, track progress, and grow Bank On’s reach 

The St. Louis Fed hosts BOND Hub. The Bank’s community development department leads the project, while its statistics department gathers relevant data.  

The CFE Fund, a 12-year-old organization established to support improved financial access efforts, worked with the Bank On National Advisory Board and others to develop a set of national certification standards for Bank On accounts.  

“Without the CFE Fund, there probably would not have been a BOND Hub,” Locke said. She noted that the CFE Fund is also extremely helpful in connecting Locke with banks that offer Bank On accounts as she works to encourage more banks to report data. 

Rothstein had a similar view of the importance of the St. Louis Fed’s role.  

“I don’t know that we would have been able to do a [Bank On] Data Hub without the Fed,” Rothstein said. He highlighted Fed work designing the program, working with the data, and writing the reports.  

The Fed’s involvement also was crucial to bank buy-in on reporting data, he said. Financial institutions had concerns about giving data to Bank On coalition partners from regulatory, Community Reinvestment Act, or competitive market share standpoints, Rothstein said. But they already had trusted relationships with the Federal Reserve.  

Adding to the banks’ comfort level, the Fed instituted systems to keep people from identifying a financial institution by name in the database. At least three financial institutions must be reporting data in a zip code for the data about accounts in that area to be unlocked.  

Regional banks wouldn’t want to report to competitors how many accounts they opened, Locke said. “So, the Federal Reserve was just kind of a natural fit: our reputation and our role as a convener, and a trusted source in the community,” she said.  

Improving BOND Hub data 

Following the launch of Bank On National Account Standards and the establishment of BOND Hub, data about Bank On accounts has gone from Excel spreadsheets with metrics from scattered individual coalitions to a national database accessible online.  

The latest Bank On report on the St. Louis Fed’s website has graphics and downloadable spreadsheets. The website for the CFE Fund’s national Bank On platform has an interactive data tool.  

Reporting data is voluntary. The 44 financial institutions that reported data to BOND Hub in 2024 cover 89 percent of all US zip codes, but the goal is always to get as many financial institutions to participate as possible, Locke said. Adding data from community banks, she noted, means getting more information for regions throughout the St. Louis Fed’s District, where the very largest national banks aren’t likely to have a presence.  

“The more financial institutions that report, the better the story we can tell about the impact of Bank On products and services,” Locke said. 

Bank On Greater Milwaukee’s Alberts said BOND Hub gives banks an opportunity to see what the marketplace is, and submitting data allows them to tell their story beyond their annual reports. She explained that financial institutions can show how they are meeting the needs of customers, reducing or identifying banking deserts, and having an impact in communities that might have been marginalized. 

“You’re telling your story in a national way,” she said. 

Sharing information can encourage relationships, Alberts said. BOND Hub information can help financial institutions find and connect with nearby community-based organizations, for example.  

She described a similar effect from the Bank On program: what happens when people like the woman opening a bank account in Milwaukee spread the word to the people they know.  

“You have different situations where it does make a big impact, not only just on that one person,” Alberts said. “Because sometimes people will talk, and as they’re talking, they can say, ‘Well, guess what I just did, and how easy it was to do it.’ Or, ‘This organization helped walk me through this process.’ 

“So again, just being able to have teachable moments,” she added. “And then those teachable moments become relationship building.”