Since there isn’t much public information about ChexSystems and the number of people on the ChexSystems list, we need to look to other sources to identify trends associated with ChexSystems.  Find out why we think the number of people on ChexSystems is rising…

The Federal Reserve often conducts analyses of consumer finance related topics to identify banking and finance trends.  In early 2009, the Federal Reserve published the results of a “Survey of Consumer Finances” from 2004-2007.  The Survey focused on a number of different aspects of consumer financial behavior, and one of the areas was whether consumers use checking accounts (and, if not, why they don’t use them).

Here’s a brief summary of the main finding by the Fed:

In 2007, 92.1 percent of families had some type of transaction account—a category comprising checking, savings, and money market deposit accounts; money market mutual funds; and call or cash accounts at brokerages. The increase of 0.8 percentage point in ownership since 2004 resumed the upward trend seen in earlier surveys after the ownership rate had remained essentially unchanged over the previous three-year period.

Sounds good, right? More people have checking accounts.

But wait, when we drill deeper into the data, we see that the results were broken into different categories. People who didn’t have checking accounts were grouped into categories based on WHY they didn’t have a checking account.

The biggest gainer? The group of people who don’t have a checking account because of “Credit Problems” (which more than doubled in size between 2004 and 2007.

Te main “credit problem” which prevents someone from getting a checking account is the ChexSystems list. So, based on the Fed study, it appears that the number of people with ChexSystems problems may have doubled between 2004 and 2007.

We are trying to get more details from the study so we can dig further. If you want to read the whole report, you can check it out here.

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Related ChexSystems Banking Information:

1. Will New Overdraft Rules Increase the Number of People on the ChexSystems List?
2. ChexSystems Removal — Sample Dispute Letter
3. Which is More Expensive: Check Cashers, Checking Accounts, or Prepaid Debit Cards?
4. How to Deal With ChexSystems Problems (the Really Tough Ones)
5. Prepaid Debit Cards: The Top Five Reasons People Use Them

Tagged as: banking study, federal reserve