ATLANTA-A new report attempts to shed light on who the 51 million people are who actually make up the category of "the underbanked."
Known as the FactorTrust Underbanked Index, the recently released report is the first of what is expected to be a quarterly index mined from FactorTrust's database.
"We want to empower lenders to reach these consumers effectively, as well as educate a broader audience about who these consumers are," said FactorTrust CEO Greg Rable. "With this quarterly index, we help define this subset of consumers to show how valuable they could be to financial services decision makers."
Among the report's findings on people who fall into the underbanked category:
* The average loan applicant's age is 30, while those whose loans were closed average around 38 years old. Best performers are generally older than 30, while loan amounts trend upward until age 45.
* Underbanked consumers average two years at the same address, and more than 66% of those consumers rent. Of those renters, 90% rent condos and apartments.
* Females constitute 62% of underbanked loan applicants and account for 60% of borrowers. On the other hand, male borrowers' loan ammounts are about 5.5% higher than females' ($559.99 as compared to $530.57).
* 33% of underbanked consumers have a bachelor's degree level of education or higher.
* The underbanked tend to work primarily in retail (24%), government (17%), banking/finance (11%) and communications (7%). The average length of employment for these consumers is 2.10 years, and their average monthly income is just over $3,000 (about $36,733 annually).
