Nicolás Medina Mora Pérez Photo
“One-point-five billion dollars a year is spent on check-cashing fees in the USA!” declared William Placke, the CEO of Start Community Bank. “How many years of college tuition is that? How many first-time homeowners’ downpayments?”
Placke (pictured) asked those questions Wednesday during a press conference held at the bank’s offices on the corner of Sherman and Whalley Avenues. The purpose of the meeting was to announce the launch of a new program that will allow “unbanked” people to save their check-cashing fees in a special bank account.
The program, which bank officials called “unique in America,” will create an account for customers who don’t have one. It will enable them to avoid giving part of their paychecks to cash-checking stores. They can “store” fees instead of paying them and even match some of that money with “bonuses” if they keep money in the bank. Click here to read the details of the new program.
START, launched by a community-based not-for-profit organization in the wake of the takeover and demutualization of New Haven’s larger former depositor-owned bank (New Haven Savings), has branches at Whalley and on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven.
Placke said the program will not only help working people save money by effectively waving cash-checking fees, but also “encourage saving habits” that will bring them long-term economic benefits.
“We are small, we are scrappy, but we are safe and we care about our customers,” he said of his bank. “We are the kind of community bank that New Haven needs.”
Present at the conference was Michael Haynes, who works down the block for Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven. He emphasized that the new program will benefit those at the bottom of the economic ladder.
“We work with families who are trying to buy their first home,” he said of his work with NHS. “But many of them don’t have bank accounts. They don’t have a mechanism to save or build up their credits. This program will help those families get their down payments.”
“This bank is making a clear statement,” Mayor John DeStefano said at the press conference. “They are not going to pocket the fees of our neighbors. It’s saying that investing in our neighbors is worth it.”
Lynn Smith, the bank’s senior vice-president of community and business development, added that although the bank does accept the Elm City Resident Card to open a bank account, regulations require that customers present a state-issued ID — such as a driver’s license — to cash checks without an account.
START’s community spirit was evident at the press conference, where free lemonade and cookies where offered to the crowd
“I stayed up all night baking them!” said Smith.