Unbanked population: RT’s Boom Bust looks into whether online banking is disenfranchising the poor

The global banking sector has been experiencing a major shakeup lately, with banks cutting jobs and closing branches to save money.

Boom Bust is joined by Bartlett Naylor, financial advocate at Public Citizen, to discuss the future of the online banking trend.

He says there were about 80,000 bank branches in the US before the financial crisis of 2008 and that number is slowly falling by 2-3 percent every year.

Naylor confirms that people today use online banking more often. He, however, raises concerns about low-income people, saying they are becoming the so-called unbanked population. “They are not online as much as others. So, we are concerned that the decline of branches hits hardest on the poor.”

He outlines the benefits of going online or paperless, noting that “you’ll have to pay fewer fees then, but again low-income people are disenfranchised by that trend.”

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT's business section