Digital wallets might be worse-is-better bank accounts.
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"Chexsystems?" Checking accounts in the United States are designed to be credit products, though most normal people don't think of them that way. Banks routinely extended credit for funds which hadn't cleared (and spent decades tuning the number down).
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Chexsystems is a credit bureau specific to checking accounts. If a banking customer overdrafts their account and in lieu of paying the bank back the money (plus substantial fees) just walks away from the relationship, the bank reports them to Chexsystems.
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And then they find themselves more-or-less frozen out of the formal financial system, for years. This happens a lot to folks in poor socioeconomic circumstances, and is a substantial mechanism behind the sizable fraction of Americans who are (term of art here) unbanked.
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That isn't the only use/effect of Chexsystems, but it is probably the most salient one for non-fraudulent users.
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Story time: Bank B asked me, when opening a checking account, if I had opened an account with Bank A 30 minutes earlier. Me: "Oh, Chexsystems is fast huh. That's impressive." Judging by expression this was not the right thing to say.
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Me: "Sorry, I work in the industry and geek out on this stuff. Yes, I'm mortgage shopping opened an account with them for the same reason as you: because one of you will get a mortgage from me. Does that work for you?" That, of course, worked for them.
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One of the reasons I try to write about this sort of thing so much is to make the point that in addition to the mechanical operation of systems there is substantial human subjectivity and that there are ways to play the game better than the default. I'd prefer they not be secret.
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End of conversation
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in the UK we just wrote the spec into law and made the banks do it:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/basic-bank-accounts …
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I remember asking my bank a few years ago if they could turn off the ability to write checks from my checking account since I felt it was a security issue. They of course looked at me like I was stupid. But looks like that option now exists!
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