In a comment letter filed before the holidays, ABA voiced support for the FDIC’s National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households and offered recommendations for ways the survey questions could be improved in 2019.
Specifically, ABA agreed with the FDIC’s inclusion of prepaid cards in a survey question about consumers’ experiences with bank accounts, noting that “functionally, prepaid accounts vary little from checking accounts.” ABA also recommended the addition of two questions to uncover the primary reasons customers use and value branches. Such questions would help “identify opportunities to expand banking service options, especially for those who lack convenient access to branches,” ABA said.
