MADISON, Wis.– The Filene Research Institute reported it has secured more than $1.6 million in grants to fund its Incubator, where new solutions designed to serve financially fragile populations are tested for impact and scalability.
“Credit unions can play a more active role in improving the financial lives of their members and the 50 million underbanked consumers in America,” said Andrew Downin, who heads up the Incubator at Filene. “We’re testing products that not only have the potential for life-changing personal impact but that can also provide long-term sustainability for financial institutions.”
Filene’s Incubator was created three years ago with an initial grant from the Ford Foundation with notable impact in its first initiative, Accessible Financial Services. As part of its ongoing commitment to Filene, the Ford Foundation has granted additional funds to build a formalized infrastructure for the Incubator and expand Initiatives to reach new populations.
The current Incubator initiative, Reaching Minority Households, is funded in large part with a grant from Visa. Visa has also played an advisory role for the Incubator, helping to guide the research, consult on product selection and encourage credit unions and community banks to participate in the program.
Filene said that investments in its Reaching Minority Households Incubator support new research to better understand access gaps, identify existing solutions experiencing local success, and drive widespread and sustainable impact by conducting in-market testing of five promising programs across a broader group of credit unions and community banks from the U.S and Canada.
Filene is currently recruiting financial institutions to participate in in-market testing.
For info: www.filene.org