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Financial Services Leaders Meet to Further Innovative Practices

CHICAGO-(Business Wire)-September 25, 2008 - Leaders across the financial services spectrum meet today in Chicago to continue moving forward on better ways to serve underbanked consumers.

Convening jointly for the first time, CFSI’s Innovators and Responsible Credit Roundtables will work on a range of topics, from exploring the latest developments in savings vehicles and the opportunities presented by prepaid cards, to the growing potential for municipalities to establish their own underbanked programs in partnership with banks and other financial services providers. Speakers will include Peter Tufano, Senior Dean and Sylvan C. Coleman Professor of Financial Management at Harvard Business School; José Cisneros, Treasurer for the City and County of San Francisco; and Barrett Burns, President and CEO of VantageScore. Jennifer Tescher, CFSI’s Director, and other members of CFSI’s executive team will also address the meeting.

The focus of the meeting is on learning not just from external research, but also from the projects and experience of both roundtables’ participants. A primary goal is to continue to pursue the cooperative initiatives that are already changing the understanding of the underbanked consumer segment, and the products and practices that can be mutually profitable for company and customer. CFSI’s groundbreaking national segmentation study, which released its initial results at the Underbanked Financial Services Forum in June, is an outgrowth of its roundtables program. Less formally, the cooperative framework of the roundtables is helping companies make rapid progress in identifying and shaping strategies and products that work, which is even more crucial in today’s tumultuous banking climate.

“Financial institutions in general, not just programs targeting the underbanked market, can move forward by sticking with the basics,” said Barrett Burns, who will address the group on the impact of the economic environment on underbanked consumers. “The main lesson from this credit cycle is that the process still needs to start with accurately assessing prospective borrowers.”

“The leaders of CFSI, the participants in the roundtables and Wells Fargo recognize a great need for equal access to financial products and services for all who want to build credit and establish financial security,” said Kevin Rhein, head of Wells Fargo Card Services and Consumer Lending. “By working together, we hope we can help the underbanked achieve greater access to mainstream financial services.”

CFSI’s Kimberly Gartner, who oversees both roundtables, commented, “Even in what is currently a tough financial services environment, work goes on. Underbanked consumers continue to be a large, potentially valuable market. Our roundtable participants, working both collaboratively and individually, are finding innovative ways to meet their challenges and deliver mutually profitable products and services to underbanked consumers. This first joint meeting of the Innovators and Responsible Credit Roundtables will leverage synergies between the two groups, and help each better achieve their goal, and ours: putting underbanked consumers on the path to prosperity.”

Innovators Roundtable participants include: Citi, Diebold, Fidelity National Information Services, Experian, GE Money, H&R Block, HSBC, Mastercard, US Bank, Wal-Mart and Wells Fargo. Responsible Credit Roundtable participants include: Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union, Bank of America, Capital One, Experian, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Take Charge America, US Bank, Visa and Wells Fargo.

CFSI’s roundtables unite players from across the financial services industry to generate new information, ideas, products and strategies to better serve the underbanked. All make financial contributions, and participate in twice yearly meetings, as well as research and market-testing projects. For more information about CFSI’s roundtables, visit http://www.cfsinnovation.com/roundtables.php.

About CFSI:

The Center for Financial Services Innovation, a non-profit affiliate of ShoreBank Corporation, facilitates financial services industry efforts to serve underbanked consumers across the economic, geographic and cultural spectrum. It provides funding and resources, enables partnerships, and identifies, develops and distributes authoritative information on how to respond to the needs of the underbanked profitably and responsibly. CFSI works with banks, credit unions, technology vendors, alternative service providers, consumer advocates and policy makers to forge pioneering relationships, products and strategies that will transform industry practice and the lives of underbanked consumers. For more on CFSI, go to www.cfsinnovation.com.

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