Mango Financial hopes to raise the standard of financial services provided to unbanked and underbanked consumers in the U.S. robert & fabienne/Flickr photo.
Mango Financial, also known as Mango Money, is a relatively new financial services company dedicated to serving the underbanked and unbanked population. Mango Finanacial provides its Mango Money with prepaid debit cards online, plus a full menu of bank-like services not typically available for unbanked and underbanked consumers. Mango Financial currently only has one physical location in Austin, Texas, but plans to expand to new locations.
Something extra for the unbanked and underbanked
Mango Financial was created on the basis of a prepaid debit card, but its Austin location is a preview of something extra. Mango founder Bertrand Sosa told My Bank Tracker that his company’s prepaid debit card is a gateway to a growing range of financial services unbanked and underbanked consumers can use to manage their money. Mango customers can earn 5.1 percent interest with a linked savings account. Mango cardholders in Austin can come to the Mango store to pay bills, send money internationally, load paychecks directly onto prepaid debit cards, withdraw the cash they need from the ATM, use the self-service kiosk to manage their accounts or use the prepaid debit card’s integrated mobile capabilities to send money via text message or check balances.
Mango money for an untapped market
By serving the unbanked and underbanked population, Mango Financial is going after a largely untapped market for financial services. A fact sheet provided by the Center for Financial Services Innovation (CFSI) said that 20 percent of U.S. households, about 22.2 million families, are unbanked, meaning they have no transaction account at a mainstream financial institution. An additional 22 million underbanked families use a mixture of mainstream and alternative providers such as check cashers and payday lenders to meet their financial service needs. Each year, Americans spend at least $13 billion on more than 340 million alternative financial services transactions.
Mango focuses on the customer experience
Mango Financial is raising the bar for unbanked and underbanked services. But Triplepundit said the company’s most ambitious innovation could be its first Mango Store in Austin. Mango hopes its Austin store is the first of a national chain. Jennifer Tescher, founder and director of the CFSI, said Mango should be applauded for paying attention to the customer experience for this under-served portion of the public. Tescher pointed out that Mango is thinking not only about what it offers, but how it’s offered. She said many young people are growing disenchanted with traditional banking, whether because of high fees or Wall Street greed. The look and feel of the Mango Store could resonate among these consumers.
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